Candlebuds
by Sweeter
Summary: I got wondering, what if Piggy wasn't there? My own sort of existential outlook on morality versus Golding's Freud/Original Sin outlook. Also, lots of Simon because we all love him. Done at last minute for English Project I'm going to hand in today :
1. Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

The boy with the fair hair lowered himself down the last few feet of rock and began to pick his away towards the lagoon. Though he had taken off his school sweater and trailed it now from one hand, his grey shirt stuck to him and his hair was plastered to his forehead. All round him the long scar smashed into the jungle was a bath of heat. He was clambering heavily among the creepers and broken trunks when a bird, a vision of red and yellow, flashed upwards with a witch-like cry. He continued to walk.

His bones and head ached and his heart still didn'tcease to pound with the thrill of delayed horror. He didn't think much of how he got on the island, because he did assume it was an island, but he did recall feeling objectively calm and serene as he saw the early morning blue hues of dusk and pink cloudsrocket passed his window. Now with his feet planted firmly on the ground coupled with the fact that he was relatively unharmed despite his shock and a few bruises on his extremities reality sank in.

The sound of insects just waiting to eat him alive was thick in the air. They hummed and chirped but mostly buzzed sickeningly. He could feel one crawling up his back but when he reached to squash it, it had disappeared. With the elusive bug no longer a worthy distraction he turned his mind to his surroundings. Dew clung thickly to the branches of greenery as he propelled himself further. The golden-coloured boy looked at the sky in hopes for a clue of where he was and which direction he was going. The sky was cloudless and filled with harsh sunlight that beat down upon him. Holding a hand up to block it and squinting just past the trees he could see a mountain on one side but it was not this fact that led him out of the forest but a sound. A sound as gentle and lulling as a bowl of cornflakes with sugar and cream. He followed the sound but forbade any further thoughts. He was clearly out of England now, if the scenery was any suggestion.

He had scrambled out of a jagged scar of land that he knew had been caused by a crash of some sort. He could recall a man with a megaphone who had directed them where to sit when they had boarded the aeroplane. Disjointedly, he thought of how useful it would be to have such a megaphone at that moment right now. The air was thick and wet and hot, and though he was not immediately thirsty or hungry he absentmindedly took stock of the new landscape and of all the potentially edible things. He had never been a large fan of responsibility but he had always had a fondness for common sense and it wasn't often but _did _happen when even common sense was lost on him.

There were thorny plants at his feet, and the trees were something straight out of an adventure novel. He had a faint rush of excitement at the prospect which flickered out in face of the facts. The tree trunks were rough and grey and often broken while the leaves that crowned it were unbelievably green and sprouted from the tops like feathers of an exotic bird. Scattered amongst the thick shrubbery which were unbelievably dark and green were winding blue-gray trunks that held up appealing looking fruit. The fruits were mild, pastel versions of reds and yellows and lime greens. The reds amidst the greens hang abundant in the trees, reminding him uncontrollably Christmas baubles and memories of presents and parents, but he knew better than to sample them too soon. He wasn't hungry anyway.

The boy was twelve years old, on the cusp of adolescence and striding like an animal through the lush trees that sliced their away across the clear azure sky. His shoulders were wide and he through his age he walked with ease, of someone accustomed to a rather active body. Though sweat rolled down his face and trickling to his mouth so that he could taste the sick saltiness, his body soldiered on with certain enthusiastic energy that would have been lost on anyone else. He wiped off his sweat with the sleeve of his dress shirt, sniffed loudly and wetly before he attempted to tug back his hair damp hair that was utterly drenched with sweat as so to keep it out of his face. His blond strands soon sprang right back in but with their few moments of freedom his blue eyes were wide and encompassing, reflecting the greenery of the forest as he continued to stalk through it.

He paused momentarily, dropping to squat on the fertile ground and pick up a lengthy stick. He did not know what to make of us his new adventure, but thinking of his heroes he knew it was better to be well armed should he come across cannibals or pirates. It fit well in his hand and he used it to knock away brambles and creepers from his path as if he was taming them. He did not show any of the alarm he felt on his face, merely wiped at his perspiration and pursued the sound of the sea which he was sure would bring him answers. He could see the act of waves crashing against a shore and any agitation he had felt had been soothed away as if they had been a shirt to be ironed. Already he couldn't help but to be stunned at the strong colour of blue that this sea was, so unlike the gray, churlish seas of back home.

He climbed over a broken tree trunk and at last escaped through the foliage to face an astonishing view of everything. The sun's brightness was a slap in the face but raising his arm the vividness of the land seemed to jump out at him. The sea met the sky in an extraordinary way, blue and green and purple, and the heat shimmered at the horizon to blend the two. A mile away he observed an irregular coral reef, pink and a division between the lagoon and rougher waters. Next to the splash of bubble-gum pink coral the sea seemed utterly green but still he felt as blue as it ought to be. He didn't want to release the scene but he forced his head to turn and observe the palm trees that bore large, furry coconuts that he had read contains sweet milk. He filed it away and with one last glance he nodded to himself in confirmation.

"We are going to have fun on this island," he promised himself and with that he walked towards the water, staggering away from the dark jungle. "We're going to find the others and then we'll figure out what to do." But not now was he is unspoken conclusion which he had ended before beginning merely for the sake of how crazy he'd look if continued to speak his line of thought. The water rippled, looking cool and inviting and the first thing he would strip himself of was his shoes, bending down to undo his laces before kicking them off. He felt the fine grains of golden sand slide between his toes and the rough, slick texture of fallen palm saplings. Cold water greeted his liberated feet and trusting it, he followed the string of blue that framed the shore to where it led him. In the not so far distance he could see an interruption of a seemingly smooth shoreline was a pink platform of granite.

Curious and incensed he picked up his and steadily began to jog clumsily than straight out sprint to the ledge. It was four feet tall and with a little difficulty he managed to claw himself onto the pink rock. He lay sprawled upon the fallen palm trees lazily and looked up at the green leaves of the palm trees that still barely survived on the rock. His body was infinitely more comfortable in the green shadows that the palms cast but he saw fit for himself to strip off his shirt. A gust of wind smoothed his skin and he allowed his eyes to flutter shut as he let the sound of the surf and the events of the day wash over him. Soon sand had been scattered over his vision and he nodded off.

He was one of those people who could dream in unnaturally bright colours, unlike his father that could only dream in browns and grays. It was fragments of memories that he dreamt of, the first being a rustle of a newspaper. His father was a sturdy man, and a patriot devoted to his duty. His days of leave always started with the rustle of the newspaper as he looked at the latest news of Her Majesty's war. His son had always been unstoppably interested in his father's work so he asked questions of the articles that he did not understand. And his father, not comprehending his son's age, always answered lengthily and thoroughly in language the fair-haired boy couldn't figure out.

Golden whiskers glinting in the deceptive, fleeting winter sunlight as the fire crackled somewhere in the distance in the hearth. His mother's fingers, accompanied with a lovely lilac scent, slid onto her husband's shoulders. Her hair yellow like sunlight, her dress a deep vivid and slender, massaging his muscular neck; pink thick chapped smile and a twitch of his chocolate mustache in agreement of their of hair hanging on her shoulders a reflection of their child's and she spoke mildly of the war, and of her disproval of the American secrecy. This was before she left, of course, and it was wonderful.

Far away a scent of chicken broached the boy's nostrils, a dinner to be shared among them, he sat in awe of his parents as they spoke eloquently and learnedly of things such as, 'Military Intelligence' 'Spies' and 'Traitors'. He always had and would always prefer stories of pirates than of spies, but it had fascinated him greatly. These few times they would let him into their world, a world parallel from another beloved world that contained horses and sugar cubes. All the same there hadn't been any sugar cubes in the academy.

Still, the boy reckoned he knew more than any about the war. Something about Russia and Germany and America. Even the Japanese were mixed up in it. A second world war, his father had said and his son had responded with a grave nod. But all the same the phrase 'atom bomb' came not from his parents or his teachers but from an acquaintance of his from school. It was not long after the Americans had bombarded Japan with the bomb that they had all boarded the plane, the second scattered and resembled memory of his dream.

A man crowing into a megaphone, demanding obedience and getting it from the scared frightened boys that had been kissed goodbye by their parents not more than half an hour ago. Cold and tired they piled orderly into the plane, exhaustedly slumping next their 'partner'. There were no lectures and no time wasted as the pilot began to take off. Unlike the previous scene in his dream, this dream was almost completely gray in colour. The fair-haired boy got the window seat and he used it, watching the world speed up beneath the wheels of the aeroplane and then fall away from the plane all together. A sickening, wonderful tug in his stomach and they had lifted off. His interested faded when all there was to look at was gray clouds and his head had fallen onto his 'partner's and the next thing he knew was that the plane was shaking maliciously. The rest was unknown, a blur, the certain calmness of reasonableness and then crawling out of the wreckage. The next was a slight tweak in his brain.

The trees that curled out of the ground had started of gray in his mind's vision before suddenly becoming bright scarlet. They crawled further into the sky, scribbling past the white clouds like Jack's beanstalk. A thud filled his brain and the red trees contracted into time to it like veins. All he could see was red. He opened his eyes and nearly became sick. Choking down his emotions as he had been taught in school and by his parents he could only try to breathe through the pain. His heartbeat, though erratic, had begun to slow down and he felt his lids slide down.

He laid there for a long while, simply melting into the rock and absorbing the surf, until the sun had moved so that the trees no longer blocked it. It invaded his vision, turning his closed eyes red so he could not rest easily enough. Drowsily he propped his elbows on the rough and sandy rock than pulled his entire body up. Distantly he wondered how long it would take for his father to discover the news that the plane had crashed and how much longer it would be until he found he and took him home. Despite his assurance that he would have fun in the silence he couldn't help but at the very least think of such things.

"No," he berated himself. "I can figure it out later. There's plenty of fruit and –" He slung skinny, boyish legs over the side of the pink platform and peered into the water. The little pool that was framed by the rock was home to abundant seaweed that grew fiercely and beautifully on the bottom and on the sides of the granite that had turned into the sea. Bright pink coral, the exact shade of a sunset, also sprouted every which way. Brittle and vibrant they appeared as if a cloud had been hardened and placed in the pool. The boy's bright eyes soon found out what he sought, they were small but glittered silver and wonderful in the sunshine. " . . ." he concluded weakly.

He sat up straight again, pulling his knees to his chest and frowning he bit his knuckle in consideration. He turned to look at the sky which had quickly turned from late morning to afternoon. He did not know how long the day was in such a place but he could place a safe bet that evening would come too quickly, bringing night in its stead. His hands went to his trousers and undid his belt. He stood natural in the heated light and walked over to the ledge, trying to estimate how deep the water was. His father, a commander in the Navy, had taught him how to swim when he was five so after he decided it was safer to slide in than to dive he held no hesitation. He sat right on the ledge, his legs dangling and brushing against the cold water.

It bit his toes in the unexpected cold; it had been much warmer as he had been walking alongside the shore. He sucked in a breath and slid inside the water. Water droplets splashed up to greet his face and twinge his senses as the soles of his feet hit the sand and rocks below. He scooped up large portions of water and crashed it onto his hair. The salt trickled down his face and into his mouth but his scalp sighed with relief and gratitude at the change in temperature. He splashed his body as well and felt content as his lethargic mind, still sluggish from his nap, considered how to tackle the problem of catching some dinner.

Taking care so not to cut himself on the rocks and coral he walked patiently and subtly towards the school of fishes that swam not far from him. He found himself waiting a long time for the shimmering creatures to approach him, the new fixture in their world. He knew he only had one chance to snatch them, and that if he failed they would swim away. So he waited. He still wasn't too hungry, and had never been after sleep and he had more often than not skipped breakfast altogether. His mother had, perhaps wrongfully, always given him a meal before rest than after but it turned to help him today as he could concentrate well.

He waited until the fish were bumping against the sides of his legs, tickling his ankles with their little sucker mouths and their undisguised curiosity. He was in a bent position and he could see everything that was going on beneath the water that was remarkably still despite being in direct contact with the open sea and perhaps even ocean. He chose one fish to give his focus to and his eyes never broke from his shining silver back. He took a breath and with one last glance at the treasured blue sky that was steadily mottling green and purple with the oranges and yellows of an approaching sunset he desperately tried to grab at the fish.

It hadn't been that the fish had been too fast, though it had been, or because he found his hands and a completely different position then where he had intended, to the left and a bit bent and distorted beneath the ripples. It had been because of nerves. He didn't even know what to do with a fish once he had caught it, and his fingers had trembled slightly at the thought of it. He didn't even have a fire, he would have to eat it raw at the very most. It wasn't as if he was hungry anyway, too much.

He stood up straight and stretched comfortably, the school of twenty or thirty which had spooked in his attempt to snatch one of the bigger ones were slowly and tentatively coming back to him. He watched in silent awe as the colours of pink and light reflected from their jeweled backs. He wasn't hungry now, he knew, but undoubtedly he would be later and when it was too dark to see any fish much less catch any of them. But he had run out with whatever little patience a preadolescent boy could contain.

In his haste he swiped harder and with less control than he had the previous time, completely missing the fish though he batted a few with his hand. With his unrestrained motion he lost his balance, stumbled and nearly fell. He cursed loudly when his leg scraped against some of the pink coral that was quickly becoming stained red with his blood. He felt ill and looked to the sky for answers. Time had passed hours in minutes again and it was evening and the action of the sun setting was turning the sky crimson. As quick as he could, and his heart pulsing in his brain, he staggered out of the sea and onto the platform.

He bent over and slid his pants up his legs, feeling the rough and sticky discomfort of wet skin meeting dry material. He grabbed his shirt and used it to bind up the scrape his haste had caused him, he didn't feel like watching it bleed. Ruffling up his blond hair to rid it of some of dampness he picked up his socks and shoes and walked on further.

Beyond the platform was a little pool landlocked in the sand that would have been perfect for swimming and had it been lighter out he certainly would have gone. He felt a little shame for not being able to catch the fish but he knew there was some trick to it anyway so he didn't let it bother him too much. Right now he knew he had wasted too much time on sleeping and dreams and that he had to soon find shelter from whatever creatures lurked in the forest.

Red skies had been washed away with gray and he felt apprehensive as he wandered back into the jungle. Every vine that hung on the trees surely was a snake waiting to slide down and wrap around him. He found himself two trees that leaned into each other to crisscross into a protective x-shape that could serve him well as a shelter against the elements and the animals of this foreign world. Planting his feet firmly in front of trees, he pivoted around to assess the food situation. A tree not far from his new shelter bore many bright yellow fruits which he reached up to pick.

"Don't eat those," a voice cautioned. It was clear though tentative, high and sounded like it was very rarely used. "Some of the littluns had plenty of it and they all got diarrhea." The voice was attached to a fully clothed body that belonged to a dark, vivid little boy who almost managed to look civilized past his long hair. He appeared to be within a year give or take of Ralph's age, it was hard to tell with his size which was significantly shorter. He was dressed in what the fair-haired boy recognized to be his school uniform minus the hat that looked to have been lost.

"Thanks then," he said, releasing the fruit and feeling surreal.

"We got some good fruit back at our camp." Shy dark eyes appraised the stranger past a fringe of thick black hair. "Roger's been trying to start a fire, and I think he might be able to. You should stay with us for now." Thin lips smiled with both wariness and welcome and the other one felt a full on grin spread across his face.

"My name is Ralph," the golden boy offered, observing the other with a little hunger and a lot of surprised. It wasn't that he thought he was the only one, but that he felt that he might be so such human eyes staring right back at him was a little unnerving though much welcomed.

"Mine is Simon," Simon said softly, tugging on Ralph's sleeve as he turned to lead up towards the mountain.

"You were on the plane, right?" Ralph asked. "I was near the bathroom, I got the window seat." Ralph followed Simon in trust, not knowing quite where they were going but the direction. It was Simon's slightness but mostly his easy smile that had Ralph's trust put in him and allow him to be led by the boy without demanding too many answers.

"I was by the wings," Simon confided. The trees thickened then separated, Simon brushing away the various vines that fell into their path.

"Where are we going?" Ralph asked after a while.

"Jack Merridew, he's the chapter chorister and head boy, set up camp near some water we found not far from here. It's a river. Merridew and some other boys are going to go exploring tomorrow," Simon offered. Soon Ralph found that walking with Simon was much like walking by himself, with the same degree of comfort. Simon's lips were always ready to stretch into a pleased and pleasing smiling when addressed but Ralph didn't feel the immediate need to. Steadily he did.

"So Merridew's sort of, chief then?"

"Yea," Simon replied. "You weren't in choir."

"No, I can't sing at all," Ralph grinned. "You were?"

"One of the sopranos," Simon confessed, flushing rosily at the slight embarrassment. "But Merridew can go higher than me even. But he's a tenor." The jungle span about a bit at this point and the two hushed to concentrate on jumping stone from stone across a small stream.

"Hang on," Ralph requested and Simon nodded and smiled in acquiescence. Ralph dropped to his knees, trailing his hands into the cool water to wash away the flavor of the sea. "Do we know if this is an island yet?" He cupped his hands and brought up blessed water that he had forgotten that he needed to his cracked lips.

"Not yet, but I bet if you asked Merridew he'd let you explore with him tomorrow," Simon offered. His gaze passed peacefully over Ralph in the blue light. He kept quiet for a while but then burst out, "I think it's an island. Everything's an island, really, just some are bigger. But I don't think there are any other people on here but us from the plane."

"Not even cannibals?" Ralph grinned up at his new friend before resuming slurping up the water he so craved.

"I'd like to think not," Simon smiled weakly, his eyes swiftly s canning the forest. Ralph got up and they continued to walk where Simon led them. Darkness was setting in fast but they could still see everything with decent clarity, it was at the point where the evening and twilight met with the result of a gentle glow washing upon everything.

"Wait, so _Merridew's_ chief? Where are the grownups?" Ralph asked suddenly.

"Died in the plane crash, I expect. Maybe fell out. Or it was, now we're on our own." Simon's voice was fragile but his words were full of meaning and chilling. Remembering his promise to himself, he decided to remedy the atmosphere and perhaps even extend his promise to include Simon.

"No grownups!" he crowed enthusiastically, and translating his emotions into actions he stood on his head to his new friend's delight. Simon laughed pleasantly and Ralph was similarly pleased. As they walked further into the thick trees Simon stroked Ralph's arm shyly and they had to laugh again.

"Hey, what's wrong with your leg?" Simon suddenly piped up seriously.

"Scratched it on some coral when I was trying to catch some fish," Ralph explained. "It doesn't hurt much and it isn't too deep. Can clean it tomorrow and I'll be fine soon enough."

"Too bad we don't have any medicine. But we'll be able to make nets maybe out of the vines and stuff here, and I think there are some sort if animals that we could catch on the island anyways," Simon said.

"Plenty of trees and branches we could make into spears, maybe even try to spear the fishes," Ralph noted, taking a deep breath in the twilight air. The foliage was thicker, smelt sweeter here and the words came easy. "How much further?" he asked but his reply came with no pleasant voice but rather a rustle of leaves and a pained grunt. Simon was on the ground, his eyes shut tight and his body twitching terribly. His face was taught and all colour had been wrung from it. Ralph dropped to his knees and grasped his friend's shoulders. "Simon!" he exclaimed but Simon would not stir and darkness was quickly approaching.

In a panic he ran down the hill and arrived at the dark silvers stream, dropped to his knees and scooped as much as he could into his hands and as carefully as he could he raced up the hill and dumped the water on Simon's face. There was a moment of stillness and horror where it appeared that Simon's eyes would never open but in the next second the dark-haired boy blinked and gasped, spluttering.

"Sorry," Simon wheezed, using his weak and trembling arms to pull himself into a seated position. He lifted one hand as if to wipe away the water but the other arm buckled so he gave up on that endeavor. He breathed heavily, his expression carrying the promise of passing out again if a strong breeze suddenly blew against him.

"Why are you sorry?" Ralph was scared and upset at the unexpected event and Simon's apology for something that clearly wasn't his fault. A red flush scrawled onto Simon's pallid face and ducked his head so that his coarse black hair fell into his eyes.

"Sorry for worrying you," Simon mumbled. "Least this one was short. I'm always throwing faints," he explained. "I did at Gib, and in Addis and at matins over the precentor."

"Is it some medical thing?" Ralph asked.

"Doesn't matter," Simon said, struggling to get up. "It is who I am now, there's no cure or anything. I can take medicine and stuff, but it doesn't really help much." Ralph held out a sturdy hand that Simon took, and he pulled the still shaky boy to his feet. Simon wobbled a little but he had strength enough to dry his face with his fairly wet shirt. "Thanks though. We're nearly there. Just up this hill."

"How'd you lads decide on this?" Ralph could see that the small ashen boy did not wish to speak of the happening and he was willing to change the subject for him. "Think there was enough time to explore the island today; I even had enough time to dream at the beach."

"Well we couldn't find each other, yeah?" Simon muttered, concentrating on the words. "Mostly what we did was try to find each other." Ralph noticed that he had extended his arm in case the boy suddenly fell and that Simon pretended not to notice. Simon seemed to contain a large amount of pride for that but he did gift Ralph with a grateful smile, his fingers gently tapping Ralph's wrist. Ralph let his arm fall and knew that Simon was recovering quickly enough. "That's what I was doing. Merridew sent me out to explore a little."

Even though Simon was obviously accustomed to such attacks, and was recovering quick enough Ralph found fault in his leader. "But if he's head chorister and you're in the choir he should've known that you're small. If there was some beast you wouldn't be able to properly fight it."

"You wouldn't be able to either," said Simon, his words suddenly brave though he had to look up at Ralph to see properly. "Anyway, I wasn't meant to be alone, it just ended up like that. But nothing happened so it's alright."

"You found me," Ralph argued. "What if I was a weirdo, or an adult or someone that could hurt you?" Simon smiled widely at that.

"You wouldn't hurt me, even if you were an adult; you couldn't." Simon was smiling again; his expression was calm and understanding to the extent that it nearly annoyed Ralph for being so sure. But Simon wasn't smug, but overall pleased and Simon, being so amiable as he was, could patch up any friendship with his smile even after such a terrifying fit and his attitude of wisdom. So why then, Ralph thought secretly, did Simon seem so completely desperately focused on Ralph, geared and tightly wound as if he was prepared for Ralph to run away or hit him?

"Well if I was a weirdo then?" Ralph did not want to give up so easily. "Like, what if I was someone who'd been stuck on this island for a long time and just killed visitors for no reason?"

"Well you wouldn't be you, would you?"

"That's not what I'm talking about. I said, _instead_ of finding me," Ralph felt weary, finding himself in a circle with Simon at the edge. Simon soon corrected the feeling as effortlessly as he could breath.

"No you didn't," he argued. "But alright then. I suppose I'd be killed. Still, that's not Sam's fault. I could have just as easily met someone wicked named Ralph." Simon grinned cheekily and was forgiven his trespasses. His eyes widened, focused and recognized. "Alright we're here. Merridew!" It was nearly completely dark and only one person was up. Ralph could see the whites of his eyes almost glow in the darkness.

"Merridew's asleep over there, I'm trying to make the fire," a deep, boyish voice stated. His black eyes were intense but they left the two boys alone in exchange of two small pieces of wood he held in both hands.

"Still?" Simon asked. The eyes squinted in a glare but the owner of them made no reply, and Ralph could hear the friction of wood on wood resume. Simon's voice stumbled timidly in a backtrack, "I mean, the time you spent it's –"

"Over there," the boy in the darkness gestured again to a red-haired boy that was curled up against a tree with a spear stuck in the ground at his side.

"Merridew," Simon whispered, shaking the boy's shoulders. The boy started and grabbed his spear, his eyes wild and darting furiously.

"What," he hissed. "Did Roger get the fire going?"

"No," Simon murmured. "But I found someone."

"Oh," Merridew replied, his entire body relaxing with the news. "Bring him in front of me so that I can see him." Simon took Ralph's right sleeve between his fingers and tugged him so he stood before the chief. Ralph posture was defensive and he too sized Merridew up best he could when the other boy was sitting. But Merridew didn't sit much longer but rather stand up, in an obvious way to intimidate or at least compare himself with the group's new edition. "Right, so what's your name?"

"Ralph," was the reply. The other boy's height was not much different and from their distance of a foot or two he couldn't really tell which one was minutely taller. Merridew, as his name was, carried a commanding air that Ralph had recognized in his own father so he knew when one actually deserved such an air. His face was serious and even in the little light that they had Ralph could recognize that he had an ugly and serious face. Merridew pondered Ralph with equal attention then seemed to come to a conclusion.

"You're fit enough, you can be a hunter," he decided, not without arrogance. His chin jutted out and Ralph felt that his own face was subconsciously mimicking the expression. Simon watched on with amused fascination, before walking off to sit by Roger, the boy that was attempting to start the fire.

"Is there even anything here that we can hunt?" Ralph asked. He gestured behind himself to Simon who was quietly watching Roger work. "He told me most of the day you tried to find the rest of the kids so you didn't have any time to really see anything."

"We're going to explore the island tomorrow, me and a few other boys, you can come if you want," Merridew decided. "We already know there's plenty of food, and birds, so we'll be able to find some sort of meat. I think there's some wild pigs on the island too. We just need some weapons and I think we'll be able to sharpen some sticks and make them into spears."

"I don't know how I feel about hunting though, my dad took me once and I didn't really like it," Ralph said. The truth was the deer that he had shot had haunted his dreams for months afterwards. The rush of fear and excitement he had gotten in no way could undo the guilty conscious and sleepless nights.

"Well like I said, you come with us tomorrow and if we come across something, if you still don't want to hunt you don't have to all the time. Me and my choir can hunt."

"Even Simon?" Simon's eyes shot up from Roger's sticks and widened in the darkness.

"What, the little one there?"

"Yea, he has fits and stuff." Merridew turned his eyes to Simon who shifted uncomfortably under the gaze. Merridew knew him, his range was mostly limited to soprano but he sang well. He also fainted through one performance a year ago. Merridew recognized that the new boy held some sort of liking for the Simon so he needed to maneuver carefully with the subject. He wasn't sure yet if the new boy could be welcomed into his group, but it was better to play safe with him for now.

"Well, I guess he can come with us tomorrow. If he causes us any trouble he can just catch fish and pick fruit I suppose. Watch the littluns maybe. But most of us," he seemed to warn Ralph. "Most of us are hunters, alright? If you don't like it you don't have to _always_ but when I say you _have_ to, you have to."

"But there's tons of kids in choir," Ralph complained.

"When I don't want to hunt with tons of kids," Merridew shot back. Silence hung suspended though the sound of twigs rubbing together never ceased. Ralph felt vaguely pleased and he and Merridew smiled at each other with shy liking. Suddenly there was a spark of light and a whoop of barely contained enthusiasm. "What was that?" Merridew cried.

"He's nearly done it!" Simon exclaimed excitedly. It was completely dark out but in less than ten more seconds Roger had started the fire again. Simon piled on leaves and bits of wood to help nurture the fire and following his example so did Ralph and Merridew. Within five minutes a large fire was roaring and the rest of the boys were stirring awake.

Roger's face was dark and sweaty with his efforts and the heat. "Not doing this again though," Roger cursed. "It's too much bloody trouble." He massaged his hands best he could and held them close to the fire so as to see how he could pull out his splinters. The littluns curled up close to the fire and the rest of the boys abandoned the trees they had slumped against. There was a gentle lull of chatter dancing through the night that reminded Ralph of the sound of the sea, but he knew there were more important matters than relaxation.

"Well who will?" asked Ralph. "We need the fire for when it gets cold, and to cook things, and to, and to – well, a signal fire, isn't it? How'll they find us if they don't know that there's someone on the island?"

"We don't even know if it's an island yet," Merridew cautioned in a glare. "But fine. Who wants to keep the fire tended?" There was silence and Merridew stood up to his full height, still not that different from Ralph's own. "Come on now, don't you want to eat some nice cooked meat?"

"I'll keep it tended," Ralph said.

"Only if you don't like hunting," Merridew shot back at him before assessing the rest of his troop. "_Simon, _youcan keep the fire tended tomorrow while _you're,_" to Ralph. "Exploring with me." He had decided and Simon made no argument. "Samneric can keep the fire going as well, just for tomorrow." Samneric, twins, groaned in dismayed unison at their new chore.

"'Ow are we going to make a fire?" they groaned.

"Rub two sticks together," Simon spoke softly, glancing cautiously at Merridew as if afraid to speak out of turn though Merridew paid him no mind.

"And tomorrow we'll hunt, we'll figure out the size of the island and what's on it and everything."

"What are we going to do for shelters?" Ralph asked. "We can't stay here and just lean against the trees when rain comes, and it rained before we dropped in you know so we need to build something. I don't think there's any caves so we'll need to build huts tomorrow."

"But we're hunting tomorrow," Merridew argued. "And _you_ can't hunt, keep the fire tended and build huts all at once." The fire had cast magnificent burgundy shadows on their faces, creating awesome silhouettes and making animated, flickering shadows on the ground.

"Fine, tomorrow we'll hunt but –" Ralph turned to a few fit boys that looked like they could concentrate on something for more than a minute. "You lads, you should start gathering wood so that we can starting building huts the day after tomorrow." The boys sat up straight. A few boys made sounds of protest but one nodded sternly at what he was charged with. Merridew felt he needed to do some ordering around himself.

"Yeah, and the littluns, you be watched by Maurice, okay? Stay by the sea and catch some fish or you won't get any meat if we come across something," he said. "Alright, is that it? Can we all go back to sleep now?" No one made any response so Merridew nodded in satisfaction. "Alright then. We sleep." Everyone complied with ease, sinking back to the ground and resting their heads.

Soon it was only Roger, Simon and Ralph still sitting up. Roger was staring transfixed though with a little disdain at the fire he created, still distractedly picking at his splinters and kneading his hands. Simon too stared into it, the shine in his eyes flickering along with the flames. He turned his eyes to Ralph and Ralph stared back. Though Ralph could see that Roger was darker than most and that Simon could turn pale as a ghost when he had a fit, the day outside had burned him into a deep tan that glistened with sweat caused by the heat of the fire.

He wore the remains of shorts and his feet were bare like Merridew's. The coarse mop of black hair was long and swung down, almost concealing a low, broad forehead. Beneath his fringe Ralph saw the eyes that were so bright they had deceived Ralph into thinking him delightfully gay and wicked through his shyness. They looked undeniably troubled now and he didn't bother to smile as he and Ralph exchanged gazes. Simon glanced at Roger pointedly and Ralph stood up and walked away from the fire. Simon followed, tiptoeing over the bodies with considerable control after his attack.

"What'll we do if there are people living here?" Simon posed the question. "Will we have to do any fighting?"

"I dunno," Ralph said. "We're British though, so we'll be fine. British always rise to the top of affairs in savage countries." He found himself quoting his father and he found the words longer and more impressive than he was usually accustomed to.

"And supposing there are no natives? Will we build a charming villa, and plant a lovely garden round it, stuck all full of the most splendiferous tropical flowers? Farm the land, plant, sow, reap, eat, sleep and be merry?" Simon's voice was less mocking, more desperate almost edging on hysteria.

"Course not. We don't have any tools," Ralph said, trying to interject a bit of humour to calm his dark-haired companion down. "Not even a knife . . ."

"What if we stay here forever?" Simon asked him with his soft voice. They stood on the very cusp of the camp and in the darkness the sound of the trickling stream was loud enough to cover up their whispered words. The clouds had long since departed and Ralph could see the stars dotting the skies in ways he had never seen before, even in the countryside. His math teacher had once broached the subject of infinity and staring at the stars in the knowledge they were infinite he felt extraordinarily small and warm.

"We will if we don't keep the fire tended. I read a book and they had to make a fire so that passing ships could see the smoke and see that there were people on the island. All we have is sticks, they had bows, but we can make do. Besides, I think that's what Merridew's looking for anyway, ways that we can stay here." As he spoke Ralph stared into the sky, into the dotted abyss and he leaned his arm against one tree.

"And you're wrong, we have a knife. Merridew has one. So be careful around him," Simon requested. "He didn't like it when you told the other boys what to do. He's always been in charge but until he's done something wrong, don't correct him or order the other boys around. I'll listen to you and I can get a few other boys to also do it and he doesn't need to know. But if he doesn't like you . . . just don't order the other boys around him."

"I didn't order them –"

"Merridew's used to being the only leader apart from the teachers. Just trust me on this," Simon requested, his eyes serious and they darted back and forth before adding, "I don't think he'll ever want to leave here."

"_What?"_ Ralph asked incredulously.

"Ssshhh!" Simon berated. "Just, watch him carefully tomorrow. I'll keep the fire going with plenty of smoke, don't worry. But please, don't trust him yet."

"Did he beat you up or something?" Simon was nearly a foot shorter than Ralph himself so it wasn't impossible for Merridew to hurt the smaller, physically weak boy. But luckily Simon only laughed, low and surprised with a faint flavor of delight.

"No, no," Simon grin faded quickly with his next words. "He's never been mean to me or anyone at school I don't think, just very bossy is all."

"Then what's the problem?" Ralph asked, confused.

"Well," Simon started, his eyes wide and star clustered. "We're not in school anymore, are we?" He turned his head to stare at the clouds. They breathed in the slightly cool night air, fresh and unlike anything they had ever smelt. The humidity was still so thick in the air that it could almost be grasped. In the distance they twinkled and flickered in a manner neither boy had ever seen back in England.

"Reckon these are the same stars we see back home?" Ralph asked.

"Maybe," Simon breathed. They stood in dizzying silence for a while, but when the feeling that if they stared into the universe any longer they would fall right into it became too strong they bid goodnight to each other and the beautiful, impartial stars. They turned to walk back to the camp. Simon settled against a tree and slid down, pulling his skinny legs up to his chest. Ralph, fully alert from the sleep he'd gotten earlier, watched him. Simon's eyes flickered open to look back at Ralph. He opened his mouth as if to say something important but only said, "Goodnight."

"Snake," a littlun whimpered in his sleep. Ralph leaned on the tree opposite of Simon's and shut his eyes.


	2. Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

"Hey come on. Come _on_. Sun's up," a voice hissed and someone shook him awake. Grumbling and stretching out the kinks in his back Ralph looked up to see Merridew staring down at him with clear eyes. "We're going to explore the island now." Ralph excitement roused him up and he was at his feet and stretching when the next moment passed.

"Who else is coming?" he yawned as he followed Merridew's quick pace into the morning

"Who'd you reckon?" Merridew asked, turning around slightly to watch Ralph's slightly pleased reaction. The world was in a glow of cool pink from dusk as the sun began to lazily climb higher into the sky. The morning was cool and dewy, smelling like greenery. Ralph took in a cold breath to the point of pain before releasing it blissfully.

"Did we say Simon yesterday?" he asked, turning back to Merridew.

"He's tending the fire," Merridew reminded and Ralph nodded in comprehension, brow furrowing as he considered. Only few boys were awake so early in the morning, most had still managed to cancel out the time change with exhaustive stress-induced slumber. He sized them up and one boy who was reaching to pluck some fruit caught his attention.

"What's his name?" he asked Merridew, gesturing to the boy who was nearly as athletic and tall as they, though he suspected was a tad bit younger.

"He's watching over the littluns today," Merridew informed him. Ralph would rather seem like he was only capable of giving useless answers than giving none whatsoever so he glanced around the camp again. His eyes fell on the dark figure of Roger who still managed to looked on the defense and utterly foreboding in his sleep.

Reckoning that the boy could scare off any beast he asked, "How bout the bloke who built the fire, he's not doing anything, is he?" Merridew smiled, obviously pleased and Ralph grinned back at the approval.

"Hey, Roger," Merridew said, walking over to the sleeping boy. He nudged Roger's shoulder with his bare foot and Roger gasped, alarmed. "Roger. Wanna explore?" Roger's wide eyes became gradually more hooded with each breath he took and he nodded.

"Yea," he said, standing up and brushing off the leaves and dirt that had gotten stuck to him in the night and the three boys set off through the forest. The sea was at low tide and the sand at the beach was packed hard enough to walk right on. A line of dark green seaweed parallel to the shore lined their path and they were conscious of the glamour of the scene. The sand that was flung into the air with each step they took was reminiscent of confetti, or fireworks, or rice at weddings and the strong rush of emotions they considered with those occasions was the same as now except manifold. Three boys, they reflected excitedly within themselves, setting off on a grand adventure with no one to tell them what they could or couldn't do. They could hardly contain their delight; even Roger's eyes were bright.

"We'll go round," said Merridew, obviously feeling that he needed to mark the occasion with a few words. "To the end of island, if it an island and we'll look around the corner." The two other boys made fervent noises of agreement and they picked up their pace on the beach, clearly excited to see all that they could.

An hour had passed quickly despite their overall hush. Roger had seemed to memorize which fruit was alright to eat and which could give them some delay and Ralph plucked the good fruit from the trees. Sticky juices dribbled down their cheeks and they laughed merrily for nothing to say. With sudden bursts of energy they ran ahead, whooping like monkeys and laughing like the jolliest of all the humans. They had quieted down again once the sun got a bit higher and hotter in the sky, but they hadn't lost their cheer quite yet.

Interjections in their silence were comical groans of disappointment and astonishment at the various tricks on their mind by the mirages that cut away and edited the edges of the island. A while later the end was quite distinct and awe-inspiring. Reminiscent of the platform, Ralph told them of the similarities as they observed it, burst out a squared pink rock from the lagoon. Sea birds squawked, took off and circled around it and Roger remarked that if they could build a bow and arrow they would find whether or not if the birds would taste like chicken.

"Looks like icing," said Ralph, "on a pink cake." The three friends had discovered that being an explorer was a satisfying and rewarding occupation.

"We shan't see round this corner," said Merridew, "because there isn't one. Only a slow curve – and you can see, the rocks get worse –" Ralph followed Merridew's vision and he too could see how the rocks became gradually more recessive in the outline, leading up to the mountain. The beach they had arrived at was closer to the mountain than they had ever been before and they saw it as a direct challenge. "We should try to climb the mountain from here," Merridew grinned, teeth flashing.

"Yeah," Ralph agreed. "I should think this is the easiest way. There's less of that jungly stuff; and more pink rock." Roger approached the pink rocks first, latching on. They were like frozen scattered cubes, all piled onto each other so every step left you in a different position than the previous one. It was like clambering on a large, distorted staircase on all fours. Rocks lay randomly on the trail and Roger nearly stumbled once, obviously still tired from the previous night. The boys' hands were wet and clammy with sweat caused by the rising heat and stress.

They were lost in the overhang of forestry and flowers, inching there ways along the pink rock wall. "What'd you reckon made these things? D'youthink some humans did it?" Roger asked tensely. It seemed to be perfect, too well put together to be eroded by accident.

"Nah, animals more like," Merridew replied, eyes shining at the prospect. "Bet they run all up and down thes rocks." Scattered and scraped hoof prints and erratically placed marks in the rock proved his point. Ralph looked into the forest and the forest looked back into him. He shook his head and continued to crawl alongside the rock. They weaved and bobbed through the random overgrowth of jungle, struggling passed creepers and fumbling to walk in the direction upwards. Difficulty was in knowing if they were going the right way but they somehow continued to move up and soon reached the end of their path.

"Wacco."

"Wizard."

"Wicked."

The boys were scratched and sweaty but they were all the same exhilarated. They yelled and yelled and replied to their muted echoes. The creepers had now grown so thick they allowed nothing but to tunnel through them, a challenge the boys were more than willing to take up. "This is real exploring," said Merridew. "I bet nobody's been here before."

"We ought to draw a map," said Ralph, "Only we haven't any paper." They reflected in silence.

"We'll remember it," Roger declared. "And that way no one can wander off and get lost - if they want to go exploring, they'll have to ask us to come with them."

"Yeah, right!" Merridew said enthusiastically. "Wacco," he murmured and the boys all laughed. They walked on in companionable silence. The sun was now bright noon in the sky breaking through the trees and the boys were extremely pleased with all they had accomplished already. The forest steadily opened up to an easy path that led them to the next pink cliff.

The view was wide and overwhelming, the sea shining like a million shards of broken glass. The top of the island was within their reach and they grew excited again, clambering over heaps of sharp stone. One stone in particular caught Merridew's attention and he pressed against it, grinning and crying, "Look! Look!" His companions raced to his side and joined in the attempt to push over.

It made a magnificent grating sound that they could not resist. It was the size of a small motor car and it was big enough of a task to suspend their race to their top temporarily. Grinning widely, they began to push. Their faces soon became mottled purple in their exertion. They settled on the standard, '1-2-3 push' approach and within minutes the rock had given away, to their shock and delight. It hurtled downwards into the forest, slicing through branches and leaving an open hole in the thick foliage. The entire island seemed to stir like an enraged animal, birds flew into the air and trees affected broke. When the island fell silent again the boys laughed.

"Wacco!"

"Like a bomb!"

"It fell right through!"

They didn't leave the scene of their triumph for more than five minutes, but at last they departed, crowing as loudly as they had when they had first accomplished the deed. They chattered and laughed and after the last stretch to the top of the mountain Ralph paused.

"Golly," he breathed. They stood on the lip to a mouth in the side mountain, like a cave. Inside the cave were a multitude of heavenly scented blue flowers, spilling all across the walls. Butterflies fluttered all over the place and they paused a moment to take in the sight. Never had they seen so many colours, even in dreams.

"Never smelled _anything_ like it," Roger remarked. They boys nodded with open mouths. "It's nice." However, after that splendid moment that they would put down in their minds as a perfect memory, they felt no need to hang around and the continued their journey. They reached the top of the mountain in under a minute. They spun around slowly, observing the ring of blue that went all around what they now confirmed to be an island, their island. "This," Ralph swore softly to himself. "Belongs to us." They could say no more.

It was roughly boat-shaped: humped ear tis end with behind them the jumbled descent to the shore. On either side rocks, cliffs, treetops, and a steep slope: forward there, the length of the boat, a tamer descent, tree-clad with hints of pink: and then the jungly flat of the island, dense green, but drawn at the end to a pink tail. There, where the island petered out in water, was another island; a rock, almost detached, standing like a fort, facing them across the green with one bold, pink bastion. They were utterly charmed.

"That's a reef. A coral reef. I've seen pictures like that," Merridew said quietly. The coral curled around a bit more than one side of the island, a mile out from the beach. The tide was running so that long streaks of foam tailed away from the reef and for a moment they felt that the boat was moving steadily astern. "And that's where we landed." He pointed past the falls and cliffs between them to show the visible gash. The boys nodded gravely to themselves.

"That's the thing I told you about," Ralph said, indicating to the boys the platform jutting out of the lagoon. "Looks like the others found it. Are they allowed to swim there?"

"If they're littluns Maurice is looking over them. If not, it's not our fault, they should know better," Roger reasoned.

"It looks to be shallow anyway," said Merridew. "Is it?"

"Yeah, fairly," Ralph nodded. His eyes scanned their kingdom and found a good path, near where the scar started. "That's the quickest way back." The boys all held their breaths, cherishing the moment of possessing a brand new world that no one had ever seen before but birds and butterflies. "There's no village smoke, and no boats. We'll make sure later, but I think it's uninhabited."

"We'll get food," cried Merridew. "Hunt. Catch things until they fetch us." They were lifted up: were friends.

"It's ours," agreed Roger. "Until they find us and bring us back." The atmosphere dampened.

"D'you even reckon England will still be there when we get back?" Ralph couldn't keep the gloomy tone out of his voice, but luckily Merridew rescued their mood in an example of brilliant leadership.

"We're English, and the English are best at everything," he said decisively, grinning widely. "Come on now, let's go back and tell the others what we found." So down they went, knees buckling and humors returning.

"All ours!" Ralph declared again, spreading his arm at the trees and flowers that roared and flailed with a breeze that blew cool and strong on them for half a minute. They laughed and tumbled and shouted on the mountain, tumbling down and wrestling. Roger, who never seemed to laugh very much wouldn't stop for nearly five minutes.

They scrambled down a rock slope and fell into a new area. There were foreign bushes, a species that they have never heard or dreamt of. "They're like candles, candle bushes. Candle buds, I wonder if they'd actually light up," Roger said quietly. The luminescent green buds were all folded up amongst themselves, contrasting in a light glow against the dark evergreen leaves. They smelt like magnificence and when Merridew slashed at one the scent only grew more inviting. It fluttered to the ground and Merridew kicked it for its uselessness and its easy surrender to his blade.

"Probably not," Ralph replied. "They just look like candles."

"Green candles," said Merridew contemptuously. "We can't eat them. Come on." He prepared to walk on, stepping on and completely crushing the candle-bud with his heel, but paused at Ralph's interjection.

"Hang on," Ralph requested, his hands in the air with one hand extending a finger to signal a quick break to listen . "Could I use your knife?" Merridew looked at him with obvious suspicion and disdain but he passed his knife to Ralph. Carefully Ralph took a flower for himself, observing it with careful eyes he had never had before. "I'm going to bring it to the fire when we get back, see how it burns."

"So you're bringing it to that Simon are you?" Merridew asked, voice terse and almost petulant.

"No," Ralph denied, shooting Merridew a glare. "I'm going to see how well it burns. It'd be easy to just maybe plant a bush down there if we could instead of having to grab firewood every day." Merridew nodded in false, impatient understanding. Roger watched them silently.

"He's a bit funny isn't he, bit queer," he stated, watching Ralph carefully. Ralph could not deny his statement. Simon had first struck him bright-eyed and wicked, but it had not been long till he learned of Simon's hidden side. The other boys also noticed something odd about him, and Ralph think he knew what it was. It was Simon's most endearing quality, his smile. Despite any teasing a smile would be the reply, and that was something no one had counted on. The oddness about Simon was your inability to dislike him, and the flipside that Ralph had a feeling only he was being trusted with.

"Yea," Ralph shrugged. "But he's alright. Not his fault he gets fits." Merridew said nothing, when suddenly something burst through the trees. The sound of hooves rocketing through the forest and suddenly a huge, fat pig with large tusks ran and paused before them. It was swollen and thick, only a foot or so smaller than the boys and it looked ferocious and dumb. Ralph dropped his candle bud amidst the excitement. The pig squealed low and persistently, Merridew's trembling hands drew out a knife and it was Roger that stepped forward.

The pig froze when it saw that Roger had moved forward, and seeing this, the other boys raced forwards. Merridew raised his blade in the air and it glinted in the sunlight. He was prepared to sink the blade into the flesh of the hog when he realized, and they all realized, what would happen when he did. The squeals of pain, the death of another creature but most of all the blood, splashing red as a mockery of the mild shades of pink of the island they stood on. This pause of reflection was enough for the pig to turn around and escape them, squealing away into the forest.

The blade clattered out of Merridew's trembling hands and they laughed nervously as he recaptured it. His freckles were splashed a dark red against his paled flesh. They laughed ashamedly as he replaced the blade in his sheath and on unsteady legs they stepped forward down the mountain. "I was just – I was just looking for a place to stab him, for the right place."

"You're supposed to stick a pig," Ralph said fiercely. "That's what they say when they talk about it, you're supposed to _stick_a pig. His firmness was not something to be easily argued with.

"My uncles a butcher," said Roger, offering a helpful educated opinion. "Said you're supposed to cut their neck, the throat to let the blood out or otherwise it don't taste 't even smell good." Merridew nodded, folding his arms but Ralph was having none of it.

"What's the point of having hunters, when even their chief can't kill a pig!" he cried.

"Next time –" Merridew swore resolutely, his bright blue eyes completely wide and chilling. "Next time, I _swear_." He drew the knife out of his sheath and slamming into a tree. "No mercy." They watched on, not daring to argue. They nodded in understanding and they continued to walk down. Now Ralph saw the difference between himself and Merridew, even though he still bore the injuries of his own failure he could forgive himself for it. But, Ralph supposed, a determined hunter was the best kind. He forgot the candle on the mountain.

By the time they arrived back it was already afternoon. They wandered back into the camp almost by fluke, but Roger had pointed out the fire's smoke - a gray pillar reaching into the sky, and they had followed it. Seeing their sleeping spot Ralph was surprised in the openness of it all. The river was within sight of the fire, which was still proudly burning. Simon smiled and waved in welcome, his hands and face blackened with charcoal, and the twins that flanked him bickered, taking each of his shoulder for themselves and shaking him to get his attention again.

"We need to get everyone together," Ralph said, knowing that he needed to inform every one of the huge pig, and certainly its family and their tusks. Merridew couldn't find a way to disagree.

"You know, they shouldn't even have run off in the first place," he eventually scowled in response. "Even if we yelled at the top of our lungs they wouldn't hear us." He lifted his hand to his forehead to block the sunlight as he glared down to the beach, bright and distant shades of yellow sneaking through the bushes.

"Maybe what we should do is have a meeting every night when they come back in the dark," Ralph suggested. "Maybe we should just wait, or try to catch some fish and then when it's night we'll tell them." He could see no other way that they could round up the boys unless if they all went about telling them about a meeting individually.

"You know what I'm going to do?" Merridew hissed. "I'm going to go down to them and tell them we're having a meeting _now_. And I'll tell 'em to tell everyone and then we'll gather them all around and tell what happened. I'm not gonna wait for 'em to come back up."

"I'll come with you," Roger said. "I want to wash up a bit as well, saw some pools that look good for bathing." Merridew made an imposing figure, tall and commanding with his knife on his hip and Roger walking next to him slow and steady. Roger was a very serious boy, with his dark eyes, glazed over and staring. He held a certain brand of silence about him like a cloak and if he didn't speak Ralph would find easy to forget that he was a child.

Though sweat made his shirt stick to his skin Ralph chose to stay behind and talk with the other boys. He watched his two knew friends disappear into the bushes then he walked over to the fire makers and sat up on a small rock near them. The twins looked at him with a curious expression. With hair like tow they panted like dogs, breathing in and out at the same time. It both shocked and entertained the eye and their smiles were every bit as contagious as Simon's.

"Hullo," he grinned at Simon then the twins. "M'name's Ralph."

"I'm Sam, he's Eric." "I'm Eric, he's Sam."

They said this in unision, grinning identical grins and making Ralph dizzy. "We call 'em Samneric," Simon said helpfully.

"Why not Ericnsam," one, probably Eric, complained and the other one flung a retort. "What! S'alphabetical!" And within seconds they were wrestling and laughing. "Ow! Ow! Let off!"

"Not near the fire!" Simon berated, before turning his gaze to Ralph. "Pass us some more branches, would you Ralph?" He did, standing up and reaching into the trees to snap off some greenery. He dumped it into the fire and it crackled angrily at the green, dewy quality but it chewed it up nonetheless, still hungry though less mesmerizing then it had been the night before.

The twins broke away and fell to the ground, spread flat on it with their elbows balancing them and their hands holding up their grinning faces. "Dyou see the fire, Ralph?" one of them trilled manically. "I mean – the smoke – did you see it?"

"Yeah," Ralph said. "We found our way back from the forest because of it." The smell of the fire was pleasant, all ash and smoke and it raised up something primitive and dormant in him, memories from his ancestors almost. The twins fingers' curled and uncurled in excitement, fisting bits of sparse grass and one fiddled with a stick of charred wood, his finger's staining black.

"Bet you did! Bet it was huge! Looks huge, dunnit!" he exclaimed, suddenly up on his hands though his legs remained outstretched. He looked fascinatedly up at the sky before howling like a wolf. His brother joined in and they howled a few more times before tiring of it. "It looks like it goes right up into the clouds!"

The other agreed. "Bet it does. Hey, does it? You were on the mountain, did you see it?"

"No," Ralph said. "But that was hours ago. I probably could now though, we could see everything from up there."

"So what did you see? Did you go to the top?" asked one twin.

"_Is_ it an island?" the other chipped in. He saw no harm in answering questions such as those so he did.

"It is," he confirmed. "And we walked all the way to the top and back the entire time we were away. There are no other people, we couldn't see any boats and there was no smoke that we could see when we were up there."

"And what did you see?" they urged him again, pressing him with wide eyes and winning smiles.

"Dunno if I should tell you, Merridew might get upset if I told you before he did," Ralph shrugged. "But it's an island, y'know? Was a bit tricky getting up there, too, there's a point where we had to climb a rock face over the water and through the bushes too! It got really tunnel-ly too, and – wait –" Ralph's hands dropped to his shorts pockets and picked through them, coming up empty. "Oh no! I forgot it!"

"What?" the boys trilled, and for a moment Ralph could definitely imagine them all in the choir.

"There was a flower we saw. Never saw anything like it, I bet it was a whole new species! Looked like a green candle, I wanted to see how it burned," he told them. "Maybe I'll go later."

"Can we come?" the twins probed, grinning unanimously. "We'll be super quiet!" said one. "Yeah, we'll behave!" cried the other, and they shared secretive grins and memories. "Can't believe Waxy fell for that one," one grinned. "So hey, can we?"

"Only if Merridew says yes, it's really dangerous and easy to get lost," Ralph cautioned them, the only result being getting them more excited. They jumped to their feet and rocketed away laughing and screaming excitedly, eager to ask permission to explore than sit around a burning fire all day. Simon smiled, amused, after them before closing his eyes and leaning against the tree Roger had leaned against the night before. Every muscle in his body melted and relaxed, fitting against the tree.

The fire purred and the birds swooped through the trees, cackling and quarreling. The red shapes that flittered in and out of sight reminded Ralph of the colour of Merridew's hair, and the flush of anger and shame that spread across his cheeks when he failed to kill the pig. Such a contrast was the cool green of the trees and the shadows dancing across Simon's skin from his thoughts. The breeze picked up momentarily and the fire snorted a spark in derision.

"Careful," Ralph said and Simon's eyes flickered open requesting the answer to his unspoken question. "It's sparking a bit." Simon nodded and inhaled serenely, his eyelashes flickering downwards. "You know, you're really quiet." Simon's grinned white teeth.

"If I talk to much I say the wrong things," Simon whispered. "But I just, I can't. I choke on my words."

"But you talk to me alright," Ralph said, because though Simon noticeably agreed more than he spoke around the rest of the boys he never hesitated to share his thoughts with Ralph. Simon's eyes widened, and he considered his answer, rubbing a smudge of charcoal on his cheeks.

"Some people, like Merridew, can say what they want as if they're talking to one person," Simon said. "It's not like that. Besides, I know you won't laugh."

"How'd you know that?" Ralph asked. Though he liked Simon well enough, he was good-natured and humble, if he hadn't gotten to know Simon a bit better he probably would've laughed along with everyone else if he had been in such a situation.

"Well, cos you didn't," Simon replied, apparently surprised that Ralph had not realized this. Ralph was pleased that he had gotten to know Simon a little. He respected Merridew, he had to, but he didn't like him. The twins amused him but he didn't think they'd ever grow to be more than raucous acquaintances. Even though he'd never been one for friendship, it was nice to have someone to talk to who would actually listen. But Ralph decided that Simon didn't know it for sure, no matter how wise he seemed to act.

Simon tossed the stick of charcoal back in the fire, though the damage was already done. Darkness spider-webbed across his face and he rubbed his nose absentmindedly. "Everyone does, doesn't matter how much they like me, they always do. But all the same, it's a choice, really." Ralph couldn't think of a thing in response to that so he went with the obvious.

"You need to wash your face," he said, pointing vaguely at some of most severe areas of taint.

"Oh why?" Simon asked curiously, rubbing at it and succeeding to spread the charcoal more. "Did I get some mud on it or summat?"

"No," Ralph chuckled. "You got charcoal all over it." Simon laughed when he looked down at his blackened hands. "C'mon let's go to the river," Ralph jumped up, suddenly getting a second wind of energy through the serenity of the tender breeze and relief of no longer having to walk so much. His legs still ached but he was eager again.

"No, no, sit down," Simon exclaimed, getting up and raising his hands in a restraining motion. "You stay and watch the fire, okay? We don't want it to get out of control. I'll go wash up." He turned on his heal and jogged leisurely downhill. Ralph shrugged to himself and then moved to where Simon had been sitting and settled into it. He found his place in the hollow of the tree, and he felt as though he was seated at a throne.

From the angle the sun and the fire competed for attention, and the fire one. It danced and flickered and while the sun was brighter, he couldn't remove his eyes from the fire. He could control it, unlike the sun, and he poked it idly with a stick which caught fire and he easily tossed on to let burn. He snuck a glance and the twins were right. It _did_ seem to reach up into the heavens, becoming one with the sky. He had no doubt now that any passing ship would see it.

Simon returned, now clean-faced and bare-chested. He explained that sitting next to the fire had made him sweaty so he'd taken a rock and placed it in the shirt and put in the stream to wash clean. "You shouldn't upstream from where the boys are drinking," Ralph stated idly.

"Oh! You're right!" Simon cried, leaping up, not seconds after he had sat down next to Ralph. He raced away and Ralph watched, amused by Simon's antics. Simon came back, the wet shirt slung over his shoulder and stuck to his back. "The water's really cool," he remarked, removing it and pressing it against Ralph's arm.

"It's kind of like summer vacation," Ralph observed dreamily. "But like an adventure story at the same time. I mean, we walked to the very _top_ of the island! It was _wicked_. I've never seen anything like it." He had closed his eyes and felt the sun and fire warm his face; the cold touch of Simon's shirt seemed a perfect relief to make him appreciate both temperatures. Noticing that Simon said nothing, he opened his eyes and looked at him.

"Could you take me?" Simon at last asked shyly.

"Sure," Ralph shrugged. "Don't see why not. After the meeting we could go exploring again and maybe have time to swim. Oh, but we'd have to bring some sort of weapon, even though they don't look like they'd eat us."

"What?" Simon asked with alarm, sitting straight up.

"Oh, we found pigs on this island," Ralph explained. "It ran away though."

"Tell everyone then," a snide, angry voice spoke up from behind them. They peered around the tree and saw Merridew and what could be assumed to be the rest of the boys coming up. Simon lapsed back into respectful silence and Ralph just into silence. Merridew, fiery hair and sunburnt face, was a figure of red-hot irritation. The rest of the boys came up on the hill but they would rather spend their four or five more hours of sunlight swimming and playing and mock-exploring then listening to the head chorister speak.

"Oi! Listen up! _Listen up!_" the chorister yelled. Gaining their attention he said, "We've got something to tell you. Me and Ralph and Roger, we went on the mountain." Ralph felt the need to stand up so he did, walking into the middle of the clearing to stand alongside Merridew. Roger preferred to stand a little out of the center of attention but he watched as intensely as always.

"Yeah," Ralph spoke up, passing a hand through his fair hair. "We're on an island. We've been on the mountaintop and seen water all around. We saw no houses, no smoke, no footprints, no boats, no people. We're on an uninhabited island with no other people on it."

"All the same we need an army," Merridew broke back in. "- For hunting. Hunting pigs."

"Yes. There are pigs on the island. We saw –"

"Squealing –"

"It got away –"

"Before I could kill it – but – next time!" Merridew slammed his knife into a trunk and looked around challengingly. "So you see, we need hunters to get meat for us. And also, there's no grownups. So we all need to look out for ourselves. And you can speak only when I point at you to let you speak, alright? That way we keep it all ordered. And we'll have rules!" He grew excited. "Lots of rules! And when anyone breaks 'em –"

"Whee-oh!"

"Wacco!"

"Bong!"

"Doink!"

His charisma was such that everyone caught on, giggling excitedly and making their own words to express their feelings. After much laughter and renews of laughter Merridew cleared his throat and yelled again and everyone once again returned to obedient silence.

"This is our island, and it's a good island," he spoke, voice trembling with the true passion of a leader. "Until the grownups come to fetch us we'll have fun." Ralph couldn't help but stare at his friends words, he could not have placed the words better himself. "There's pigs and there's food; and bathing water in that little stream along there – It's like we're in a book!"

Voices began – "Treasure Island –" "Swallows and Amazons –" "Coral Island –" Merridew waved his hands and the chatter ceased after a moment, bright eyes focused wholly on their leader. Ralph saw that Merridew looked almost dizzy with the attention, his mouth wide in a savage smile. He carried himself with a new sort of humble arrogance, as if he didn't really deserve the attention but he could see why he received it.

"There's _everything_ here. Didn't anyone find anything else?" His words were greeted with silence. He was about to say something else when a littler boy was shoved forward. He was small, even for his age which appeared to be about six. He had a mulberry-coloured birthmark on one cheek and his face was scrunched up like he wanted to cry and he nearly did. "Yes?" Merridew didn't so much encourage him but wish to get on with it.

The boy's lips trembled and he nearly ran away into the jungle had not the boy Ralph had seen picking fruit earlier on and who had apparently watched over the littluns, who was big enough, scooped him up and brought him back to the center of things. "Whatsit?" he asked the boy, bending down to listen. "He said something about a snake-thing? What are you going to do about the snake-thing he said?" He looked more confused than mocking but everyone else laughed, including Ralph. Simon broke a smile but it wasn't one of ridicule or scorn. The boy twisted away and looked longingly to the bushes. "Now he says it's a beastie."

"Beastie?" the boy, Bill who'd been eager enough at the idea to build shelters the next day, echoed Maurice. He shoved his mouse-coloured hair out of his face and laughed a little.

"Yeah, a big snake, says he saw it in the woods," clarified Maurice, his hands clutching the littler boy's wrists.

"Don't be stupid," Merridew sneered, stalking around the clearing. He moved like a creature, and he knocked away leaves with easy. Though skinny, it wasn't that Merridew was little or frail or even a littluns in his body. Though older than him, Ralph had fit into his body a lot more easily than Merridew had. But Merridew contained within him something that was impossible to refuse. "There's no such thing as a snake thing. This island's too small for one anyway."

"You were dreaming," Ralph explained kindly as he could. The older boys all made noises of agreement among themselves while the younger ones glanced at each other in worry, needing more rational explanations. "It's a different place, and none of us really trust it yet, but there's no such thing as a Beastie. Never has been, especially not here. This is _our_ island. There's nothing to be worried about, you just had a nightmare."

"Yeah that and you're a cry-baby!" Merridew guffawed and everyone else joined in. Whatever fear that had crept into their hearts was vanquished swiftly with Ralph's words and Merridew's ridicule. He laughed a little more and swiped away tears that pooled in the corner of his eyes then he concluded; his voice still thick with laughter, "Alright, enough of this nonsense. Me and Ralph and Roger, we been all over this island. All we've ever seen is birds and pigs –"

"No we haven't," Roger said. All eyes snapped to look at him. "I mean, we haven't been all over this island. There's that other side, the bit we couldn't get to because of the rocks, remember? The rocks, kind of pile up and make a bridge, there's only one way up. Maybe . . . But there isn't a beast." This was something everyone could agree on.

They hadn't thought of that and they paused. "Well if there is one, we'll hunt it and kill it. There isn't one but we'll make sure when we go hunting," Merridew said decisively. "Just you shut up about it, alright?" The littluns shivered and fell silent. "Look, the thing is – fear can't hurt you any more than a dream and that's all it was. Tomorrow, me and some of you lot, we're going to hunt, and we're going to find _meat_." The word itself was harmless, the way he said it was almost lecherous and dirty, but sounded so delicious and succulent and full of want that stomachs rumbled and mouths salivated.

"And we'll hold a _feast_, with fruit and pig and fish too, and we'll cook it all on the fire. And as for the beast, all we's heard is a little sissy whine about it. All you littluns ought to shut up about it, cos we'll make weapons now and we'll kill whatever pig, snake – _anything_ that gets in our way, alright! Here's some new rules for you lot: there's a meeting whenever I say it is, and also every night before we go to sleep. Second, no more talking about the beast. And thirdly – we hunt! Now! Alright!"

"Alright!" the boys echoed back, hearts thrumming with excitement. The order came as a surprise but not at all prematurely and the boys leapt to their feet. Merridew became alive under the attention, eyes blue and mad, hair tangled and face furious. The boys roared. Ralph watched with emotions he never knew he could feel, and he did not know how he could categorize them. But looking to Simon's face he could see abject horror and fear. And to Roger's, a sort of mesmerized awe, scared and hungry. Roger's eyes met Ralph's and a shudder shook through his body.

Shaking his head, Ralph walked off, disappearing into the crowd of dispersing boys. Biguns and littluns alike set off further into the jungle under the orders to fetch sticks that Merridew would personally sharpen into spears. Ralph instead walked over to Simon who was pale as ash. His expression was blank though taut. "Ralph," he greeted gravely, fingers wrapped around each other and absentmindedly twitching.

Ralph found himself seeking some sort of common ground so he attempted to fall back in time. "Shall we get someone to tend the fire for us?" he asked. He pressed a hand against the tree Simon's back had molded into and he looked down at his friend.

"Who would?" was Simon's haunted response. He did not look back at Ralph, staring into the flickering fire instead with sweat pouring down his face again though there was no flush of heat in his cheeks. He had busied his hands with, when Ralph had been focused on Merridew, putting on and buttoning up his shirt again. It was wrinkly and wet, clinging to his skin like the shriveled shell of a nut but he looked like he'd rather do anything but take it off again.

"It's stupid," Ralph hissed, suddenly angry. "The fire's the most important thing on the island. How can they expect to be rescued except by luck, if we don't keep a fire going? Why don't they see –we ought to – ought to die before we let the fire out?" Simon looked like he had been struck by the sudden outrage and Ralph wilted slightly, feeling guilty. "I guess we'll have to wait until after dark to leave, the smoke won't matter in the dark. But maybe we could ask Roger," Ralph suggested, though knowing that he abhorred the idea. Roger's dark eyes looked like just that, darkness, and he didn't want to look into them anymore.

"Roger said that he wouldn't do it again, too much trouble, and it is. Look, I got some splinters," Simon whispered, displaying his palms which were indeed quite scratched rubbed raw. There was a stain of red on Simon's hand which the river hadn't washed away thatindicatedthat he had begun to bleed from a splinter and that he had distractedly wiped away the blood. "And how will we see in the night?" Ralph hadn't considered it, but he knew they wouldn't be able to justsmuggle the fire with them.

"The moon," was his answer, a stroke of genius and he took a moment to admire himself for it before gesturing haphazardly at the sky. "It doesn't look like it's going to be cloudy tonight so we'll be able to sneak away been under this sun too long and we started forgetting about the moon." Simon's laugh was cracked and tired, an old violin played with a slippery hand, but was welcome like a hot water on cold backs. "Alright, so, tonight? When everyone's asleep and dreaming of beasties?" Ralph pressed again and Simon nodded. Ralph set back, pressing himself to the tree and sighing loudly.

Far off he could hear Merridew yelling and his boys yelling back, laughing and giggling and uprooting small trees. Their sounds were muffled from the distance and it was probably just his imagination but he could hear Merridew's knife being drawn from his sheath. "What are we to do tomorrow?" Ralph mused. "We said that we'd build shelters tomorrow but now Merridew wants to hunt. And he'll make me come if he wants me to."

"He can't," Simon assured. "It's your choice, and the least he could do is let you have it. Yours and mine job is the fire." He glanced up with slight desperation. "Right?"

"Right," Ralph responded, confused. "We've got to keep this fire going for – well, cooking and warmth when it'll get cold and _rescue_. Rescue's the most important thing, and that makes fire the most important thing."

"That's it, exactly," said Simon, eyes wide and lips parted in new comprehension. "Merridew thinks the most important thing is meat, to hunt. And it's not as if it isn't. We have to eat if we want to even consider getting off the island. But there's where it all falls apart, when we see things differently and we want everyone to think the same as we do, what we think is right."

"What –" Ralph exclaimed, feeling the need to defend both himself and Merridew and he hardly marveled at the amount of words Simon had just bubbled up with. "I don't think I'm right _or_ wrong. I think it needs to be done – the fire. And he can hunt, if we can make the fire."

"But he doesn't want you to make the fire," said Simon. "See it's already becoming like school, except here people actually listen to him. He likes you, but he's still figuring you out. He doesn't know if you're side or not."

"Who's side would I be on?" Ralph spluttered.

"I'll just say it differently – he doesn't know whether you'll listen to him or not." Simon's face was serious and sunburnt. His hair was in a tangle and there were faint hints of charcoal and dirt all over his body. His lips chapped and his shirt, barely holding together. But his words, again like his mother and father's opinions on war and such, went right above Ralph's head.

"_What?"_ he echoed shrilly.

"Everybody wants something, and some people want to hurt you. Some people don't, it's just greed really and you're just hurt as a casualty, and he's, he wants power," Simon said, flushing uncomfortably through sunburnt skin, suddenly conscious of Ralph's rapt attention. "By, by thinking what a person wants you can learn how much you can let them, touch your life. That's why, that's why you just can't trust him."

Heard in the distance were whoops of excitement. The sound of a slicing blade echoed sharply through the trees even from more than half a mile away. The insects buzzed, the birds chirped, far off the lulling sound of the sea swayed. But Ralph heard only Simon's words, the treasured kind he gave out as if he only had an allotted amount and he needed to choose the absolute right ones to use in his life.

Ralph asked, "And what do I want?"

"You want . . ." Simon squinted and focused. "Not much. You're not, you're not greedy. I think . . . I think you want to get off the island, go back to home but I think you want to have fun. Kill the pig, and have feasts, and explore all over the place, and, and sneak away to have some sort of late night adventure to find a flower to see how it burns." Simon concluded with a wide, excited smile. "You just want to be a little bit happy." But Ralph was prepared.

"And what do _you_ want?" he asked, truly curious. Simon paled and blushed, cycling through emotions and debating within himself.

"I just – I want to get off here too. And I want to go with you. And I want the littluns not to be scared anymore, because just talking of fear makes everyone scared. And I don't want to be –" Simon had been looking at his feet, blushing furiously at the attention when he had suddenly bashed into a tree. He reeled and his forehead turned red. "Hurt," he mumbled in conclusion. Ralph nearly laughed at Simon's mortified expression but he knew better than that, for Simon was growing steadily more agitated.

So instead he steadied Simon by grabbing his arm, swiping the little bit of blood that had pooled on his forehead. "It doesn't look bad," he assured him, and attempted to distract Simon by going back to the original conversation. "So hurt? What by, the beast?"

"I don't – I mean – I mean," Simon stumbled and started to breathe heavily. Ralph rested a hand on Simon's damp shoulder which seemed to relieve him of some of his burden and he smiled weakly. Blood was rolling down his forehead, curling around the bridge of his nose and pooling under his eyes and sliding down his cheeks like scarlet tears. "I mean – What's the dirtiest thing there is?" he finally spat out, fingers trembling unstoppably.

"I don't know?" Ralph said, face taught with alarm at Simon's lack of concern for the blood sliding down his face. Ralph almost took the shirt from around his wound to dab at Simon's but he recalled that his shirt would be dirty so instead gripped Simon's.

"It's – It's us – It's _us_, cos we have the choice now, y'know? The grownups do. About the war. They don't have to be like us. They don't have to be dirty and greedy and mean. They can be – they _can_ be smart and creative but, but they aren't, are they? Except in ways to hurt – to hurt other people."

"So we're dirty?" Ralph asked, lifting the bottom of Simon's shirt to smudge at the blood that was beginning to drip down. Simon's shaking fingers wrapped themselves around Ralph's wrists and he half-sobbed.

"We become dirty, that's what it is. It's not like they teach us in Bible Studies, we don't start off dirty and become clean. We start off as nothing and then we become something, and that something can be clean or, or dirty depending on the choices we make. But most of us, and most of the strong ones like Merridew, they don't _want_ to become and stay something clean, because it's too _hard_. It's _hard!_ When we have the choice of tumbling in the mud for fun instead of walking the safe path and, and looking at the stars but we'll roll in the dirt and our shirt will get dirty. And it'll get splattered with mud, and then blood and it's our choices that make the shirt dirty."

"Well, can we, can we clean the shirt?"

"Not this shirt," Simon said sadly, absentmindedly wringing out his own top as Ralph cleaned out his wound.

"What, our soul?"

"No. Like I said, this isn't soul, it's not something that can be bought or sold. It's something in us that is ours and no one else's, not even God's. Can't be our soul, cos another option is just ripping off the shirt all together and the soul's got nothing to do with that, not even if you sell it to the devil cos I don't think even then you'd be completely bad, it's just not possible. Anyone can be good or bad so no, it's, it's our _choices_. It's who we want to be and what we do to be who we are, it's our – it's our - "

"Goodness?"

"No, no, it's our . . ."

"Dignity?" Eyes snapped up and met Ralph's fully in what he realized was the first time. "My dad," he explained. "Is in the Navy. And he and mummy used to talk about the war a lot. Dad said dignity you could sell cheap in war but mum said you couldn't sell it, it was a personal choice to give it to someone. She said people with none were the ones that could play with it so easily. They were the killers in war, she said. I mean, she was for the war, but she was against, you know, killing."

"In war people don't have anything to stop them or tell them to stop -they don't have no laws, and they don't have no Holy books. All they have is themselves, and people who have themselves tend not to go to war because they don't want to lose themselves. And, and now we can't escape," Simon looked desperate and harassed. "So we gotta stick with what we believe, and what we want to believe."

"What do you want to believe?"

The little boy shivered but forced himself to speak. He looked almost ill but as though he felt he was obligated to speak."I believe that everyone can be good, just like everyone can be bad like I said. It's just our . . ._dignity_, and then the books written about it but calling it morals or virtues. I want to believe that I can be good, that I am good, and that I won't become, you know, like _them_." He could have been talking about anyone but Ralph had distinctly saw his head twitch in the direction of the sounds that Merridew and his hunters' were making."Well really, it's not that I want to believe that, I just want to believe that that's who I'll chose to be when the time comes. And I want to believe that they can become, well I wouldn't say like me, but like . . . good, and kind, and caring, and unselfish. Only the strong can actually be merciful."

"But I thought you said the shirt could never be washed." The wound had stopped bleeding but Ralph had not let go of Simon's shirt, he rather clung to it as if it was a life raft as he looked deeply at the lights that Simon's eyes held.

"Well they can't ever be forgiven if they touch another person's life and shake it. But they can become good. For themselves. What's the point of being good for anyone else?" Far away they heard they heard an enraged squeal of the pig and they assumed that the hunt had started early. Wild giggles and screams of delight, then rage and squeals, squeals, squeals. "Anyways," he said softly. "That's why I'm scared of being hurt. No beastie, except maybe the beast that we can become."

"Why are you so quiet, Simon?" Ralph asked not for the first or final time. Simon seemed to have a whole hidden self behind his smile, and Ralph felt as if he had stumbled on a trapdoor that opened up a series of passageways through the mansion that lead to the darker, though more interesting sides of the rose hedges. However, it wasn't that Simon was dark inside like Roger, and just pretended. The smile was just as real in him as was his thoughts and the words he captured them in. But such thoughts and language was something Ralph somehow knew only he had been privy to.

"Well I've had to be. Who wants to listen to me talk?" Simon laughed and at already such an age the corners of his eyes crinkled with what would become permanently set lines in the future. "I've had to learn how to deal with them. And I'm quiet because there's a difference between your personality and your dignity. Your dignity is a part of your personality. A huge part. And the way I figure is, maybe I can't always say the right things when it matters. But maybe I can _do_ the right things."

Simon's expression was content, like there was a fire burning inside his heart. But it wasn't perhaps as passionate as Merridew's, more of a pleasant, delicate roasting. It wasn't a forest fire, it was the fire that greeted you after a day out play in the snow, then running inside to strip to your boxers and sit before the fireplace to drink hot chocolate. "The fire's going out," Ralph noted, once again finding an anchor to his tangible world. Simon accepted it easily, picking up a stick and tossing it in their bubbling stew of light and Ralph finally was forced to relinquish his grip on Simon's now blood-stained shirt.

"We better stoke it. They'll come back and they'll want to cook their slaughter," he mused. Though his tone was soft and subtle, not even a twelve year – soon to be thirteen years old, boy could miss his bitter words.

"Are you against killing, then?" he asked. It wasn't that Ralph had suspected Simon to be a bloodthirsty animal-killer, but he had never struck Ralph as a sentimental, animal-_loving_ boy. Simon inhaled and sighed, his eyes shutting to the heat, letting it dance on his sun-cracked skin.

"We got no right to touch anyone else's life. We don't get to decide what they can or can't do, and we don't get to decide when they die," he shrugged, suddenly getting up. His shirt had dried considerably sitting in front of the fire but when he moved a drop of water from his hair fell on Ralph, searing his flesh. "I'm going to get us some more tinder wood." And it was when Simon was ought of sight that Ralph was suddenly full of questions to ask him and eagerness to listen. It passed, as all things do, disappearing completely when a cry of achievement filled the air.

"Aaa-oooh-aaaoow!"

"We got her!"

"Right up her arse!"

"Right _up_ her _arse!"_

Simon cast more wood on the fire and a worried look at Ralph. Their thoughts were the same, _'her?'._ Boys burst through the trees, littluns who hadn't gone on the short-lived and victorious hunt but _had_ gotten a good look at the battle came first. Then more familiar faces arrived - Bill, Samneric, and the other older boys. Then came Maurice, with a stick on his shoulder that stretched across to lean on another's shoulder, who's dark eyes shimmered with a sick sort of brightness.

"What happened?" asked Ralph.

"We got ourselves a pig," said Roger darkly, letting the weight of his side of the stick be held in his hands instead of on his shoulder. "Is the fire ready? We're going to roast it." His smile was appallingly different from Simon's, but nonetheless felt just as strongly. He walked forward, following Maurice, and Ralph got a better look at what they were carrying.

"Hang on," Ralph said confusedly. "Hang on . . . where's the head?" At first he hadn't gotten a good look at the carcass but once they had moved closer towards the fire he noticed some vital things. First, it was a bit smaller than the pig he had first encountered but only slightly. She, and _secondly_ he could see that it was female, looked like no easy feat to take down and he had to admit some grudging respect to the hunters for catching her in the time of his and Simon's conversation. But thirdly, and most shockingly, she was without head.

Instead of one, there was only a gaping neck bone that was bright scarlet instead of white because of the thick were jagged marks all in her flesh, some still bleeding over her pink and black body. They looked to be made of knifes and spears and the violence done was appalling. Dark purple were the edges of what would have been her neck, still clotting after death, and a swarm of flies and stray wasps followed her fresh body. "Quick!" he heard himself exclaiming. "Get her on the fire before the flies get to her!" The boys propped up sticks next to the fire, forcing Simon out of the way of progress, and suspended her skewered body on it. The fire crackled approvingly.

Above the fire suddenly appeared Merridew's face, blood-splattered and smiling chillingly and proudly though he twitched whenever his eyes fell on the pig. Though his features were familiar, Ralph knew them, Merridew looked and laughed like a stranger. He stared daringly at Ralph but Ralph met his gaze with equal conviction, seeing the wildness and realizing again what was important.

"So what happened?" he asked again, turning to look at Roger, not wishing to see the uninhibited intensity of Merridew's frightening, bloodstained look for longer than he needed to. He would rather not look and pretend that Merridew was an innocent, perhaps a bit bossy, boy just like him. He'd rather pretend, as he supposed Merridew did, that he wasn't affected by the blood. That he hadn't changed, though the key was in the eyes.

"We found her – by the sea –" Roger pointed down to the unfriendly side of the island but Merridew soon jumped in, eager to tell the tale as he had seen it.

"We all spread round. I crept, on hands and knees. The spears fell out because they hadn't barbs on. The pig ran away and made an awful noise –"

"It turned back and ran into the circle, bleeding – " All the boys were talking at once, relieved to release their excitement. Their voices chattered and merged into one and apart again like the rapid speech of Samneric. The hunt had bonded them together and Ralph could not deny that within himself there was a slight pang of jealousy. "We closed in –"

The first blow had paralyzed its hind quarters, so then the circle could in and beat and beat –

"I cut the pig's throat – "

The twins, still sharing their identical grin, jumped up and ran around each other. The rest joined in, making pig-dying noises and shouting.

"Give her a fourpenny one!"

"Right up her arse!"

Then Maurice pretended to be the pig and ran squealing into the center, and the hunters, circling still, pretended to beat him. As they danced, they sang and the sun set.

"_Kill the pig. Cut her throat. Bash her in."_

Ralph watched them, envious and resentful. It wasn't as though he had wanted to kill the pig and if he'd wanted to hunt he could've. But he had been taken by surprise at the optional order and he had chosen to stay behind with Simon, who now looked as if he'd swoon again any moment. And he hadn't thought that they'd actually catch a pig, not so quick and easily. It came as a shock to himself that he had wanted to _be there_ when they had hunted for the first time, despite what Simon had said about taking another being's life.

Simon, however, looked positively ill at what was happening. On shaky legs he attempted to stand, and walk away as if he had been taken short. Ralph took notice and wondered if it was a signal to also escape the primitive mob, dancing about the fire and singing songs reminiscent to the nursery rhymes of childhood, or the university anthems they had learned for the school they had planned to go to, except more savage and with infinitely growing excitement.

"_Kill the pig! Cut his throat! Kill the pig! Bash him in!"_

A voice broke through the ruckus and skin stretched into a sneer. "Oi, get back to the fire," Merridew ordered fiercely, seeing Simon's attempt to flee. "You wanted the job, s'not like I'll let you abandon your post of duty now." Simon pressed his lips together, and sat down. Merridew moved from his spot standing to kneel next to Simon, his face broaching Simon's space, considering him and the trembling of his fingers.

The circle that had unconsciously formed now crowded around the fire, singing and dancing. They paid mind to their chief and his evaluation of the amicable choir boy who got fits and needed to be lugged around. The scent of roast pig wafted into the air and intoxicated them, and they raised their voices further, whooping and screaming in delight.

"Will you hunt with us, Simon?" he asked.

"Th-Thought you said my job was to tend the fire," Simon breathed, clearly frightened beyond his wits but he admirably got the correct words out. He chanced a quick glance at Merridew's face and recoiled at the gross mixture of fascination and derision. Merridew said nothing but stood up, drawing his knife from his belt. The chanting reached a crescendo as he hacked at the meat. The stake roasted quickly and the boys saw ways to get at the meat by skewering it on branches and holding them in the flames.

Ralph accepted his piece eagerly,roasting it and soon finding that gnawing wildly on a half-raw piece of meat was a better option than burning his arms in the attempt to cook it. Samneric went further in this philosophy, barely cooking the meat enough to keep it from oozing slick blood, almost as if just to cauterize it and they bit down, ripping away the meet with their teeth, blood running down their cheeks with dribble. Simon watched this, pale and frail and when Merridew proffered a piece of meat Simon did not accept it.

"Give it to the littluns," he nearly beseeched,the littluns who had been more a part of the hunt than he clearly wanted the meat but were not offered any. Merridew sat down, and stared at Simon for a long time before tossing the piece of pork aside, the littluns leaping at it and snapping at it comically and violently as if it were a breadcrumb tossed and they were a flock ofsparrows in a park. The chant had quieted considerably without the littluns voices contributing because though high-pitched, they certainly were loud. The rest of the boys caught on and looked at the development. Merridew leapt to his feet from his seat at Simon, slashed off a great hunk of meat and flung it down at Simon's feet.

"Eat! Damn you!" he glared at Simon. "Take it!" Simon eyes were open wide and horrified, when suddenly they rolled back in his head and he passed out on the roots and dirt. It was a great source of amusement to the boys, especially for Merridew. He laughed loudly and riotously before almost instantaneously settling down. "Guess he won't hunt with us," Merridew sniggered, standing up and fetching his own hunk of meat. The rest of the boys took this as a sign to quiet down and tuck in so they did, piling around the fire and chewing contentedly.

Ralph looked concernedly at Simon, who appeared to be breathing alright but when he made a move to see if he could awake him, Merridew shook his head. With a glance to Roger, and Roger nodding, Ralph had no alternative but to sit back as Roger picked Simon up and put him aside. When thing had quieted down almost entirely, he turned to Merridew again.

"Merridew," he said calmly and pleasantly, trying to keep anger or command out of his voice. "What happened to the pig's head?" With the boys all looking at him Merridew had to tell the truth.

"We cut it off, and we put it on a stick. We figured that if we made an offering to the beast, it would leave us alone," Merridew shrugged before taking another large bite out of his piece of meat.

"But there's no such thing as the beast!" Ralph shouted, incredulous that Merridew, the oldest, would think otherwise. The boys were no watching with rapt attention, most chewing absentmindedly on their meat as one would popcorn during a dramatic scene in the movies. One of the twins wiped away the blood from their mouth and stopped altogether to watch the argument.

"Can you prove it?" Merridew asked, glaring. Ralph could say nothing. "Exactly," Merridew sniffed. "So you see, it's best to stay on the safe side. Shut up and eat," he advised. "And let's hunt tomorrow."

"But don't we have a few days before the meat goes bad?" Ralph asked. Merridew glared at the rest of the boys, who all began to talk at once as though they had been silently ordered to.

"Let's prove to them there's no beast then. I want to explore the other side," Merridew said considered, and then grudgingly nodded. After seeing the display where Merridew had frightened Simon to the point of fainting, he found himself more inclined to listen to Simon's line of reason – that Merridew didn't know whether or not to trust Ralph, and Ralph could see why. Ralph probably wasn't the only one with a mind of his own, but he was the only one who ever spoke it. Merridew was half buttering Ralph up, half putting him down, in other words just trying to control him. Perhaps the whole show with Simon was to just to demonstrate to Ralph how scary he could be, or maybe he just wanted to remove Simon entirely from influencing Ralph altogether. It didn't work but Ralph saw no reason to pretend that it didn't. He also wanted to explore the island fully and find the lack of evidence for any beast so he took another bite of pig.

Merridew smirked. He was frightening, and Ralph wasn't ashamed to admit it. Simon had basically declared it, after what frightened Ralph the most was not Merridew's obvious intoxication with the scene of blood or his intense intimidation of Simon but of later on, after the feast. He had eaten as well and not spared a single bite because, as much as he could disagree with the method it had come to him, the taste of good meat was something Ralph had missed. Half an hour after the feast, with sun nearly set Simon had stirred. He did not look once at Ralph.

It was after the feast, when they were letting the fire die down for the morning, he could see Merridew in the dim light.A little sun-drunk, belly-full, and completely sated his eyelids drooped and he smiled lazily. It was his utter content with this new world that was so frightening. Ralph realized that if Merridew had his way there would be hunting every day and no hunting, no fell asleep slumped against the tree closest to the fire within minutes and everyone else did swiftly. The fire flickered out.

Ralph lay in silence and in darkness for a long while, forcing his eyes shut and his breath to sound even. When he was certain that everyone was asleep, he cracked an eye opened. He was satisfied to discover that the moon was bright enough in the sky and no one was stirring. He was even more pleased to see that the only figure that was awake and standing was Simon, his arms crossed and his gaze directed to the stars and moon. Ralph stole over to him.

"Aren't you tired?" he asked softly as the fire chuckled away its last minute.

"Nah, c'mon, you have to see this," Ralph assured him, and they set off through the night trees. This new alien world was not reconcilable with the world lit by the sun, but Ralph found that it was no less beautiful. As they passed over the sandy beaches, feat sinking into the watery sand, they looked at the reflection of the moon on the water – scattered all about and at one point it cast a direct spotlight on the sea. They both half-wished that they could swim out to that circle of moonlight, but they remained landlocked.

"I faked it," he confessed to Ralph as they began to weave into thicker parts of the forest, getting further and further away from the beach."Couldn't think of anything else to get him off my back."

"I think you're right," Ralph said. "He's just acting – like – like we're all animals."

"We_ are_ animals," Simon remarked, amused. "But like I said, he just wants control. And, and control over you too. And because he can't affect you yet, he settles for the next best thing, me. He wants you to be his friend, I think you're the only one of us he respects. Maybe, Roger, but that's only because Roger's . . ."

"Roger," Ralph agreed. "I was thinking . . . maybe you were making too much of a deal about this. I mean, it's hard to be chief, and to hunt to." Merridew was strong where Simon was weak, but Simon was wise where Merridew was impulsive. Ralph knew that it would be smarter to side with Merridew, but all the same important to listen to Simon. And he could not deny that Merridew was acting increasingly violent and almost cruel. "But what he did back there –"

"It was a show of power," Simon shrugged. "I'm barely not a littlun. Maybe if I was he'd leave me alone. Maybe if I didn't be friends with you, he'd stop bothering me. And maybe he'd listen to you instead of getting all upset because he thinks that we were friends first."

"Thinks?" Ralph the moonlight he could see the ripped apart and decapitated trees strewn about on the ground. They turned right when they reach the rock Ralph had climbed on the first morning, treading among the trees.

"A-Are we friends?" Simon asked nervously, tucking his hair behind his ear.

"_Yes,"_ Ralph assured, recalling Simon's insecurity. In the moonlight he could see the shine of teeth and he bared his in response. They walked in silence some more, the night was dry and the vines and leaves brushed against them tantalizingly and pleasant. Ralph found a stick lying around in some bushes, and picked it up to knock away the greenery that came into their path. Steadily, he asked, "Why d'you talk to me instead of the others?Why'm I different?"

Simon appeared to be surprised by the question so Ralph expounded on it. "I mean," he said. "I think you're probably, the smartest kid on the island but they don't know that. They all like you, except maybe Merridew, but he'd like you if he wasn't being all weird about everything. But they don't know how smart you are so I can guess that you don't talk to them like you do to me." Simon smiled sadly."So why me?"

"I know people better than other people do. That's cos people aren't afraid to be cruel to me so I know . . ." he took a breath. "Their best and their you listen to me. You don't interrupt me, or give me a chance and take it away like some people do; I guess I talk to you cos you listen. And you never _were_ cruel to me, but they were."

"I didn't know who you were until the island!" Ralph argued, determined to get to the bottom of smell in the air became fruity and sweet-smelling as they combed through acres of fruit trees.

"You _would've_ if you cared about that sort of thing – people who don't fit. And you helped me when I had an attack, anyway –"

"Thought you was dying, I did!"

"Yeah, but you'd be surprised how many people have just left me there. Like if they punched me, and I got a fit, they'd run away and my nose would bleed and it'd get all over my face." Simon's fingers trailed to his nose, rubbing self-consciously and scrunching it up at the pain in the memory.

"Why'd they punch you?" Ralph asked.

"Cos I'm I'm batty," Simon shrugged, picking up his pace a little. His dark hair was tangled and thick, but strands caught the moonlight turning the darkness a pleasant blue. He held a sort of seriousness in the night, a blunt frankness that went against his shy agreement during the daytime. It was like as if the cover of darkness that permitted him to speak, passed a mask of night. "How much further?"

"But I mean, you _are_ different, but everybody likes you!" Ralph cried. He couldn't help but notice this. The littluns gravitated towards him, and he'd often grab fruit for them that they couldn't reach. There'd be Samneric, utterly enamored with Simon, teasing and clamoring – vying for his attention. Boys either took no notice of Simon, or they liked him immensely for his self-deprecating attitude.

"Well, that's cos I smile, isn't it?" Simon asked. Ralph found no words to reply to Simon, that had hit the issue right on the nose, so Simon went on. "One time I got beat up because someone had been threatening me and I got an attack. The teachers suspended them cos they had three strikes already, but their friends gave me a thrashing. A good one too, but I was so upset that I actually started laughing because it was so stupid. I mean, I remember thinking to myself, 'Why do we do this?' and I just started laughing. Not like crazy laughing, but like a grin. And apparently that was bad enough for them to leave me alone. So I figured out that if I smiled – well, I wouldn't get hurt quite as much because it wouldn't seem like it hurt me. And after a while it didn't. So I've been smiling ever since."

"But are you – are you _actually _happy?" Ralph found himself asking, seeing that his image of Simon's pure joy was shaking and threatening to shatter. But Simon placed a calming hand on Ralph's shoulder, half-calming his friend and also using it to let himself be tugged through the winding overgrowth that had blotted away their light source.

"When I'm waking up, and they're laughing and I laugh along I get happy because it doesn't hurt me anymore. And they like me because I don't get upset like most people do. I guess you could say that I'm not actually happy, that I'm just faking it to avoid beatings and to get people to like me, but I _am_ happy," he smiled.

"But – But you of all people know how mean we are!" Ralph exclaimed. "I mean, no one's ever really been mean to me, and when they've tried to hurt me I've always licked 'em! But you've been – and they hurt you and then laugh at you, how could you be happy?"

"Yeah, well, it's a choice how you act. There's some things that are in your control, some things that aren't. For me, it's not in my control when I get fits or that I have them. It _is _in my control how I act because of them. Like, was it in our control to board the plane?"

"Well, no, Britain was going to be bombed. We're _lucky_ that we got shipped away."

"Actually, no. We could've ran away. Sure we would've been bombed but that's still our choice."

"Yeah but it wouldn't have made sense."

"Well see, people see things differently. Different things make sense to different people. Just like getting used to here makes sense to Merridew, getting off makes sense to us. It makes sense to somesoldiers in war that the other side isn't the same as they are while it makes sense to another soldier that they're all the same. And then they make choices on what makes sense to people, you know, don't pick any sides really. They try to get on, it's all we've ever really been able to do well. But the soldier who decides that everyone on the opposite side doesn't deserve to live, he'll kill tons of them without losing any sleep over it while the other soldier will do anything but hurt them. But the dangerous thing that happens sometimes is situation."

"Situation?"

"Yeah, like I said, its how we look at the world that affects our choices, and our choices affect who we are but really, its situation. I mean, if I were born to your mom and dad, I'd probably be more like you than I'd be like me. But then, they may have acted differently if they'd had a son that was more of a burden then a blessing." Ralph wanted to interject an argument but he did not wish to spook Simon. "But it all comes down to choices, but I think sometimes you need to make the choices before its time that you even know that you have to act on them," Simon explained but Ralph shook his blond head in confusion.

"What do you mean, make the choices before you even know that you have to make them?" he echoed.

"I mean , none of us ever knew that we'd end up on a deserted island. Taken away from all we know, and dumped here with a choice . . . either we can try to get off, or be _savages_ like they 's few people who actually want their choice, the rest just, go along with it. But when you saw that there was a choice to hunt, or to help with the fire, you stayed with me because you knew that getting out of here is much more important," Simon illustrated. "But everyone else, they didn't have time to think about it. So they decided to go along with Merridew, their leader. They didn't think for themselves, and it was an easier option than to sit by the fire all day and tend it." He extended a query to Ralph, "What was the first thing you decided to do?"

"Have fun," Ralph mumbled, feeling slightly embarrassed in comparison to Simon's well thought-out argument. Clearly, he reflected, silence if it doesn't make you think it definitely encourages it.

"I didn't promise myself anything until I saw what kind of a person Merridew was on the island. Then I promised myself that I wouldn't get trapped in his world. So right away we made a fire, and I'm never going to stop trying to getting off this island, and I'm never going to change for him," Simon said stubbornly.

"What d'you mean, change?"

"He could make me into a hunter, a killer. He could hurt me so much that I'd never recover from it in my heart. But even though I can't control him, I _can_ control me. I'm going to make sure him, this island, the beast, doesn't change me."

"And who are you, to change?"

Ralph found that even though he couldn't answer questions in the capacity and intelligence that Simon could, he could ask questions that could stump anyone. "I, I'm a trier," Simon said. "I try to be good. I try not to hurt too much, or hurt anyone too much. I try to smile, y'know, laugh and see the good things. He could, he could take that away from me, if I let him."

"Like dignity?" Ralph asked. The moon poked holes through a thick matt that the creepers had woven. They bent down, worming their ways through the mat. Appearing on the other side they breathed and wiped the hair from their faces. They heard the crash of the waves rumbling from the beach and they took a moment for peaceful reflection.

"Yeah," Simon spoke up at last, one of those few moments that he initiated conversation. "And you know what I think what another major thing is, is that you offer the kids what Merridew can't. He offers them fun, and hunting, and fresh meat but you, with the fire, offer them home and their parents and, well, civilization. And you could win them over in a heartbeat, I can tell. You've got a trustworthy face, a lot more trustworthy than his and you can speak well in front of them and you bring up important problems.

"So he doesn't want to be my friend, he wants to make sure I don't overrule him? That's ridiculous, I don't want to rule them."

"Maybe not rule them, but you want things to change don't you?" This could not be denied. "I think it's a mix of both.

"Yea," Ralph agreed. "He doesn't want me to get too many people agreeing with me because then he won't be able to order them around so much. And he also doesn't like us being friends, because he wants to be friends with me. He doesn't want you to listen to me, when it's really me listening to you." They laughed long and pleasantly."We're here," he said quietly, extending his silver hand which cut off and disappeared into the darkness. He could tell that they had arrived because of the scent.

In the light the candle buds hanging from the trees shone brightly against the dark green leaves. Their scent spilled out into the air and took possession of the land.A closer inspection revealed that the buds had unwound themselves in the night and Simon gasped. "Golly," he breathed and Ralph nodded enthusiastically in agreement. "Have – Have you a knife?" He turned around to look at Ralph, with echoes of the amazement the flowers had caused still written on his face. "I mean, shall we take one?"

"No, Merridew's the only one with the knife," Ralph replied. "Here, maybe we can –" their hands reached and felt for a certain bud that caught their eye. It was green and shimmering and they pulled and twisted at its neck until it came loose. Simon cradled it in his hands and let it fall against his chest.

"Wow," he murmured, picking through the trees again as they turned back."I wonder how if it will light. It'd be really handy if we could."

"Yeah, that's why I brought you up here," Ralph said. "Reckon we should take a few down with us, then see if we can light them, or if they can make some smoke or what?"

"I think," said Simon, his forehead furrowed in concentration as he picked amongst the ground and found two sticks. "That I know how Roger managed to light the fire. And I think, we could, maybe have a fire in no time at all and we could figure out for ourselves. Hey, get us some wood." And Ralph sat next to Simon in the sweet smelling forest as Simon tried to create fire. Ralph fell back to lean against the grass, looking at the stars and moon and listening to Simon's soft grunts of frustration which he always swallowed down and came back to with more patience then ever before. It was there they sat for near an hour until the first spark appeared.

"I think," he said softly after a small fire had been created. "We ought to make a bow, because I've read plenty of survival books and they say if you make a bow and you . . . something with a stick . . . well, it should be easier." He held up his hands for Ralph to see and sure enough they were red and raw again. "I can see why Roger didn't want to do it anymore. But someone's got to."

"We'll see what we can do tomorrow," Ralph said, fully awake and now very eager. He held the green candle-bud, with its dizzyingly strongfragranceagainst the 's stigma, acting like a wick, was first to light and it glowed a bright orange before the fire licked up the rest pistil. "Whoah . . ." he murmured. "Wizard."

"I reckon it'll only last until it gets to the petals," Simon said. "The smoke smells a bit nutty now."

"You're a bit nutty!" Ralph grinned, shoving the flowers into Simon's hands and promptly standing on his head again. He had been excited, standing on the very peak of the island, but right now he knew that nothing would ever make him feel giddier than this secret midnight adventure that no other boy on the island but Simon would ever experience. They both laughed when he accidently slipped to fall on his back and back aching, he helped stamp out the fire. They plucked a few more choice candle-buds and Simon tucked his shirt into his shorts and placed them in side.

"As long as I don't carry anything they won't get crushed," he explained as they headed back down the mountain.

The fire that had nipped at their skins and cast manic glints into the eyes of their leader was completely unrelated to the green light that the candle exuded. There was now a gentle lime glow on their skins as they plodded their ways through the midnight forest. Casts of moon-blue and candle-green lit the night but it was the light that created dancing, twitching, ever-shifting shadows to creep by them in the trees.

"The littluns are afraid, I think, because of the 's nothing else to be afraid of. I was thinking, maybe we could take the fire in shifts, or maybe just plant a candle-bud bush down there and then just burn one every night instead of making a fire all the time? It'd be easier," Ralph proposed, eager to fill the darkness with words.

"No," said Simon. "Like I said, I think the flower'll burn away after the wick is used up, cos obviously it doesn't go all the way down like it does in a real candle." Ralph felt a bite of irritation, not at Simon but at Merridew, and the littluns, and Roger and everyone.

"It'd be easier if they just weren't so afraid of the dark. Then they'd stop talking nonsense about the beast," Ralph muttered, suddenly conscious after he uttered the words that it sent chills through their skins. He chose to ignore the feeling but it was hard when Simon took his customary moment of silence to process what had been told to him.

"We're afraid of the dark cos we can't see what's in it. Well, I think people are lot more scary, cos you can never see what's in them either, and they'll lie. The darkness doesn't lie." This time Ralph had to consider what he could say in response, taking time as well.

"Just doesn't tell the whole truth," he was beginning to say, but before he could get too far in thought, the stigma burnt away entirely and the flower appeared to fall apart like burnt paper. It turned in a split second bright red, and then it collapsed in Simon's hands,leaving them with the distinct feeling of being alone, in the darkest time of night. They hurried back, trying not to let their hearts pound too quickly.


	3. Chapter 3

CHAPTER THREE

The lack of sleep had taken a toll on Ralph but he worked hard, compensating for the increasing pain in his head that was beginning to build in the edges of his brain by putting on a show of bravado, cheerfulness and muscle as he helped to build the shelters. The exhaustion showed more exclusively on Simon's face, dark bruises circling under drooping eyelids and he walked accompanied with the dead sort of submission that is common in people who have gone for more than twenty-four hours without sleep. Ralph worried about leaving Simon on his own to build the fire, especially after the meager two hours blink that they had experienced before dawn's curtain was raised. He left Simon in a trancelike state, mechanically rubbingtogether twotwigs.

Bill, Maurice, Robert, Ralph and a few littluns that went off scavenging for decent branches to contribute, were the ones working on the shelters. Bill was well built, and Maurice was tall so they were both well fit for the job. Robert was the youngest of them but still old enough not to be considered a littlun, and his dedication and eagerness to fit in with the older boys made him a great worker. As they worked they chattered idly, often exchanging banter amusing enough to make them all chuckle but not enough to distract them from work. It reminded them all distantly of their school environment when given time, conversing with their neighbor as they sweated away their schoolwork.

"You know, I bet, when we get back to England this island will be the Queen's, you know?" Bill said, grunting as he helped Maurice lug around a large piece of wood back from the forest. "They'll stick a flag in the ground and declare it Her's, and maybe if we ask nice she'll let us be in charge of it." Maurice and he sighed in relief as they stacked the log against the hut and they stretched their arms into the sky.

"You mean like kings?" Robert asked, wiping away the sweat that had built up on his forehead and begun to drip into his eyes as he headed back into the woods to get some smaller pieces of wood to thatch up gaps in the shelter's roof. The troop of littluns followed him, one among them the boy with the mulberry-coloured birthmark.

"Yeah, or prime ministers," Bill shrugged, brushing away his mousey hair from his eyes.

"My history teacher said there was plenty of kings our ages and younger. There was one bloke who was king when he wasn't even one years old!" Ralph cried with false enthusiasm which none of the boys caught on to. His headache was screaming as if he had caged it within his mind and it was rattling the bars in rage and in lack of anything better to do.

"I wouldn't like to be a prime minister, even of this island," Maurice sniffed, bending down to wedge a stone into an optimal spot in the shelter.

"Not even a queen?" Bill teased and all the boys sniggered and Maurice laughed in earnest.

"I'd like to be . . ." he continued, considering. Maurice was the boy who appeared to be most home on the island, mentions of England or school or even rescue appalled him. Ralph had debated that either Maurice didn't want to become homesick by allowing himself to think on it too much, or that Maurice simply had found a place on the island which was an easier fit than for most of the boys.

"Jester," suggested Robert and they all roared with laughter and made sounds of agreement. Ralph found that even through his exhaustion his spirits were lifted to be with these boys, optimistic and enthusiastic and extremely hard-working. The sun was not too cruel today for there was a light wind on their spot a bit further off from the lagoon, and the crash of waves lulled them so.

"Aow!" came a cry and a littlun known as Henry approached crying from the lagoon, tears and snot running down his face. "I got hit! Someone through a rock at me!" A red stroke of blood originating from his forehead also dripped down, bright and ugly. He looked well prepared to fall into hysterics but Maurice was soon at his knees and to eye to eye with the littlun, gibbering amusing sounding nonsense and pulling outrageous faces to cheer the boy up. Ralph paused in his work and watched in, he knew, with a sort of sick fascination.

"Got any water?" He heard it distantly but he ignored it as he would abuzz of a fly. "I said, have you go any water? I'm thirsty." It was Merridew, his eyes narrowed with slight concern and suspicion. Ralph started a little when he realized that it was the chief he had been so duly ignoring.

"Oh, ? There by the tree. Ought to be some left," Ralph he, feeling a wave of fatigue falling upon him like the painful end of a whip. He set upon himself to fiddle with the complication of leaves on a branch he was attempting to patch onto the shelter. He heard the sound of water sloshing and splashing onto skin, then a contented huff and the sound of heavy breathing followed Merridew's quenching action. The rest of the boys gave nods indicating respect but other than that did not pay much mind to their chief who fortunately was in a lot more informal mood at the moment.

"Needed that," Merridew sighed contentedly, smacking his lips, however the satisfaction quickly faded to be replaced with more miserable and conquering emotions. "I been searching around this morning, with some of my hunters, for pigs. I let them go, though." His hand latched slightly on the elbow of Ralph's sleeves, subtly though insistently tugging him away from where the other boys could hear them clearly. I had to go on I –" He tried to convey the compulsion to track down and kill that was swallowing him up. "I went on. I thought, by myself –" The madness came into his eyes again and he lowered his voice though the glee evident in it was inexorable. "I thought I might kill."

"You didn't though," Ralph said pointedly, from observation there was no blood splattered on Merridew's skin, nor any sort of satisfied expression that accompanied a kill and the hunters hadn't been talking about it as no doubt they would have.

"I thought I might," Merridew insisted in a half-whisper."By myself."

"Doesn't matter," Ralph said, finally firmly fixing the branch to the hut. "We're not going to hunt for pigs today. We're going to explore the rest of the island, right? Prove to the littluns that there's no such thing as a beast." Merridew looked as though he'd much rather argue this point but his mouth snapped shut as another boy began to address them from behind their backs.

"My daddy said they haven't found all the animals yet, at least not in the sea," Maurice spoke up from thatching another plank of wood to the rather shabby-looking shelter. "I mean, I don't believe in the beast of course, life's . . . well, it's scientific, but we don't know, do we? Not certainly, I mean."

"I guess we will soon," Ralph said,smiling. He stood up to his full height and looked at Merridew. "Did you want us to go now?" Merridew mulled it over and shrugged. He jerked his head in the direction of the unexplored side and, brushing his shorts off from leaves and dirt, Ralph followed. The other boys made whines and interjections about how they wanted to come but Merridew silenced them with a glare to serious and cold for the teasing. With a command to get the twins to help them out in the stead of Ralph, Merridew set off to explore the island once more.

Mirages were accepted now, the distortions, the infinite number of copies scattered across the sky, the chunk of universe taken away and filled with a reflection of space, as a part of daily life. Merridew and Ralph had decided to ignore the idea of finding a third member to go with them and they marched away, this time with spears sharpened at both ends. As they travelled further away from the sea Ralph found his headache worsening along with the heat of the sun.

They walked with a certain sort of serious dedication that they had lacked the first time round, and this time with quickened speed because of their direction and determination to resolve matters. They were trapped in a cage of blue and the hot sun only made Ralph's headache more severe. He was not tired enough to physically stumble in his step or make a mistake but he was sure that Merridew had or would soon notice and demand to know what was making him so tired. He did not.

They pulled themselves through thick, crawling vines; over dragging and itching sand; passed crumbling rocks and nearly unyielding forests. They had a short break to breath and during that Ralph removed his shirt from his leg, feeling that it was now well healed enough to do so. Sure enough the wound had begun to scab over and though the shirt had been a substitute for a Band-Aid and was stained with some dried, brown blood, he slid it on. Merridew had long since cast away his golden badge and hat in exchange for a more convenient dress of nothing. He wore his shorts, his knife belt and a look of constant concentration and suspicion. He had the look of the hunter already, always expecting the unexpected.

After these observations half an hour or more passed in mostly comfortable silence, with no words exchanged. It was not like he and Simon, or for that matter Ralph and Roger, they felt tense not speaking about anything but neither of them knew what to speak of. But since they _did_ know where they were headed, the time of their journey was nearly cut in half and ended when Merridew at last broke the quiet of their world with the words, "We're in sight now."

Pulling aside a curtain of tall grass Ralph saw what Merridew had spoken of. Up from the deepest pits of the ground rose the pink rock that they had seen from the top of the mountain, now a more imposing sight than ever before. It was perhaps a hundred feet tall from the water's highest wave and there was a thin bridge of rock that led to this castle-like landform. On either side of that bridge was a straight direction downwards and it was not an adventure Ralph felt like undertaking but with a glance shared with Merridew, who looked every bit as apprehensive as he did about it, he knew they'd have to do it. "Wish we brought a littlun," Merridew joked, not entirely hiding the nervousness in his voice as they took their first few steps across the narrow bridge.

They drew their breaths in tightly, panting like dogs. On either side of the bridge was a direct path to death in the form of crushing oceans waves and Ralph hadn't known how scared he was until he bumped into Merridew. They didn't meet each other's eyes, instead, focused on the other side. Once they had arrived they spent a few moments to will their hearts back into their chests before turning to each other and nodding in affirmation. The danger of falling was over, the danger of running into a beast – be it a wild animal or a wild person, was still as real a threat to them as their previous worry. They ventured further into the castle.

Ralph saw no need to climb the cliff of the rock, but instead he focused on a plinth that curved around it to reach things that were out of sight. He edged alongside it, using his spear as a walking stick and a third leg, and soon enough he had discovered more pink boulders covered in guano. A bit further and he and Merridew had discovered a small half-cave, vacant of anything of interest. It curved inside, craggy bits of rock hanging half-heartedly down the ceiling but look more spattered then spiky, and were too small to look as if they would cause any real damage. Merridew however took a great fascination to it, which made Ralph suspect that he felt bitter because of his lack of sleep but it honestly wasn't too impressive.

"What a place for a fort!" he said excitedly. Ralph thought about it, considering the pleasant yet intimidating view of the sea. Perhaps it was a distraction, or something psychological but Ralph's headache seemed to be muffled, warded away, with the sudden gust of wind that brought with it the smell of salty sea air. A spray of water sloshed into their faces and Ralph could taste the downside."No fresh water."

"What's that then?" Merridew asked, indicating a streak of green that they soon reached. Down from it trickled clear looking water and they both scooped a handful up to their mouths. It tasted like minerals but it was sweet enough to pass Ralph's lips and it did not leave an unpleasant aftertaste as sometimes the stream down the island did. He did, however, prefer the old stream with all the mixed memories it already held for him in the short island they had been on the island. Without noticing he had become part of the island. "You could keep a coconut shell there, filling all the time," he brainstormed.

Ralph absentmindedly said, "Not me. This is a rotten place." He knew somewhere distant in his mind that he was speaking rudely and out of turn but Merridew was so enamored by the place he let it slide. Obviously Merridew saw some glamour that Ralph missed in the musty-smelling cave in the rock. Ralph found that the half-cave in the mountain with the sweet-scented blue flowers, and its many fluttering butterflies that appeared to twinkle in and out of vision like stars in the night sky, was a lot nicer than this newly discovered place. And it was still less girly because this cave was pink, after all.

They dug their craggly nails into the rock's side again as they scaled the rock's height side by side until they reached near the bottom. Merridew had paused and being more curious then tired for that moment, Ralph had as well. He followed Merridew's line of vision to a large, broken rock that seemed to hold stubbornly in place with a little arrogance and an excess of secure pride. Merridew predictably felt the need to remove it from his new kingdom and he placed his hands on it, as if he could give it a gentle push and it would topple over.

"Do you remember?" he asked spiritedly, and some sea-scented air came up to ruffle his red hair that had already grown a little in length. It curled around his ears and shined brighter and slicker with the lack of toiletries, cowlicks bringing up his hair in a indirect mimic of horns. "That rocked we pushed over the second day?"

"Yeah," Ralph found himself willing to grin at the memory. The rush of power he had never quite felt before and still today he could recall the sound of Roger laughing, which at the time had not chilled him as it did now. "Looked like a bomb in the forest."

"Shove a palm trunk under that," Merridew said, palms flat against the pink stone, pushing it slightly but even Ralph could see that even if both of them tried it, they'd still need the external force of a tree for leverage. "And if an enemy came – look!" They both did, hanging onto the rock in question for stability, letting their spears clatter to the ground. Peering around it, they looked down the dizzying height of around a hundred feet where they could see breaks in the grass where they had trampled on it, and next to that the licking of the sea against the rocks. "One heave, and – wheee!" Merridew leapt back, throwing his hands in the air and sweeping the expansive view with his exultation. Ralph leaned back, releasing his grip from the rock and picking up his spear again.

"There's no enemy," Ralph reminded and Merridew frowned at the sudden brooding behavior of his friend, but he agreed with a grudging nod but he wasn't the type to admit another was right out loud. Ralph's eyes swept the view and somewhere in the flat part of the forest he could see the smoke rising out of the trees. "Good, the fire's roasting well." He could imagine Simon, lids drooping but stubbornly being opened by his determined personality, idly prodding at the fire and dreaming, as any person did when they had to tend a fire, of distant places – some that existed and some that ought to.

"You and your fire," Merridew snorted derisively, his spear making a clattering sound as he used it to prod his way across the thin bridge of rock between the rosy, bastion-like tower and the rest of the island. He had not been expecting a response so when it occurred he looked surprised.

"You and your pigs," Ralph shot back a bit bitingly. They looked at each other, baffled, in love and hate. All they needed to fall back into the same mutual respect and tentative liking they held for each other was to laugh, loudly and relieved, and commencing to walk back down the island. Merridew appeared to not harbor resentment for Ralph's refusal to fall in line, but it was probably because he was so caught up in his thoughts and dreams of the rock castle.

They knocked across the tall grass, not quite so willing this time round to feel the sliding, slicing sensation of the sharp grass brushed against them which would later, as they now knew, itch for the small cuts it produced. Then they passed trees where Ralph needed to weave through lest he bump his head in one. He nearly did, feeling a certain bit of terrible and irrational foreboding, as he turned back to look at the large, pink bastion that reached up into the sky. The rocks were unsteady and the drop was long, as well as the easy way of punishment that Merridew had discovered within minutes. It already looked to be equipped with too manydangers and it appeared to have been created entirely to control, which was nothing that Ralph wanted to give fully and blindly to Merridew even if Merridew was a great chief.

They had been inside the thick jungle for a while, spears held limply by their sides in tired fingers, when suddenly Merridew produced an undignified noise of surprise. Ralph also started at his saw large, pink shaped rise and fall and heard large heaving breaths and smelt the strong tangy scent of rotten fruit and something he had learned distinctly to be the smell of wild pig. In closer inspection he could see them, three of them – one of them a male, and another slightly smaller pig, still mighty in her size. Her belly was lined with piglets, each and every one of them unaware of what would happen next as they suckled at her teats, burrowed in her warmth and squealed at random with the content of 's grip on his spear increased to the point that his knuckles turned completely white despite the shade darker that the sun had turned everyone, but seeing the sow his grip had relaxed once more. The pigs were all sleeping blissfully, and one grunted as it turned over, its snout landing in a half-eaten and now pulpy and fly infested fruit. It snorted in alarm a few times, before turning over again and falling right back asleep.

Ralph and Merridew could scarcely restrain their laughter as they gazed at the coarse, fat ill-looking animals, while they laid groaning and snoring heavily amid the remains of their supper."Now Ralph," said Merridew, in a low whisper. The chief grinned, taking out his knife, as if eager to show off to Ralph how adept he had come to it but instead he took Ralph's wrist and pressed the blade into his palm, closing his friend's fingers around the hilt.

"Don't you think we had better put them up first?" Ralph whispered; it seemed cruel to kill them while asleep. With hands free Merridew took his spear and positioned it like a harpoon, though obviously ready only to charge.

"If I wanted _sport _Ralph, I would certainly set them up; but as we only want _pork_, we'll let them lie. Besides we're not sure of killing them; so fire away." Seeing now what was Merridew's meaning Ralph raised the blade in the air, gripping it in such ways he had seen in spy movies. He relinquished his grasp of his spear, letting it rest against his hip as he focused on his target. Taking a deep breath to clear his aching mind, he brought the knife back then let it fly.

"I hit her! The knife stuck in –" Ralph was full of fright and apprehension and pride, despite the fact that he had not hit the intended pig, but rather the sow. The male pig, in a flight of infidelity, ran away into the underbrush as did most of the squealing piglets. "The knife stuck in a bit!" Merridew smiled with a hint of pride, before pursuing the pig. Ralph allowed himself to sun in the new respect, and felt that hunting was good after all as he quickly, unintentionally kicking aside a bewildered piglet as he followed Merridew.

Merridew had not yet released his spear at the sow, rather preferring to trick her and trap her, and felt a certain smugness of Ralph's unquestioned compliance. But as the forest became too thick and tangled he was forced to stop, and look for traces of blood. Finally he located what he was looking for, hidden amongst green ferns like a sacred, scarlet flower. Ralph looked with silent, grudging admiration when he cried, "There –" and before he could exam the drop of blood himself, Merridew had swerved off mysteriously right and assured, so Ralph followed him.

She thundered off, dizzy with fright and the rapid loss of blood with the knife stuck deeply in her snout. She rolled forward, charging straight into a tree as Simon would have done, the knife burrowing deeper and more blood dripping down to splatter on the shallow grass. It was here that Merridew finally sank his spear into her. She gave an admirable struggle, squealing and bleeding horrendously – blood spurting all over he and even Ralph who was still a few feet away, but with Merridew's spear constantly stabbing into her female belly, she had no option but to give up.

Seeing that her movements had stilled but she still had not died, Merridew leaned the spear into her with one arm and ripped his knife from her snout from the other. Then, his eyes trained on her body beneath him, he sliced her throat and hot blood spouted over his hands. Her body kicked one last time, then buckled and gave way. He sat on her bleeding belly, his underwear becoming drenched with her blood and he panted.

Ralph had watched on transfixed, not knowing whether he wanted Merridew to stop, or to continue – punching holes into her body with his spear. The colour of blood agitated his own and it coursed, thundering like the sound of a native drum, through his ears and for a split second he had wanted to rip Merridew aside and _hurt_ her, how he had not known. But with the kill, the uncontrollable want had subsided and left him horrified and sick.

Merridew stood up and left her lying there, oozing her guts over the ground. His legs knocked together as he walked over to Ralph, breathing unsteady and eyes wild with delight. His hands landed on Ralph's shoulders, then felt their ways up to Ralph's cheeks – smearing slick, steaming blood all over them in a cruel mockery of Ralph's attempt to clean Simon's face from his own blood.

Merridew's entire face was crimson as well, splattered with the blood that had burst sporadically out of her neck, and his pale skin and bony face was hidden by it. Scarlet and dripping, and his hair too damp with it, his pale blue eyes peered out from the jungle of red. "Wasn't that fun?" Looking into the face of glimmering rivers of red that dribbled downwards like candle wax Ralph croaked yes, feeling violently sick and feeling sickly violent. Then Merridew removed himself from Ralph's view, and a rush of green hit his eyes and relieved him for a moment of the gory sight.

"We'll take the meat along the beach, and we'll have a feast and tell them what we found," Merridew had sunk to his knees and started to work on the saw, punching into the wounds on her belly and pulling out the bleeding guts that he found in her, exposing the inner workings of a pig. "And we'll leave part of the kill for . . ." He took his knife, cutting at her neck, hacking away until it was no longer attached to her body. He picked up her head and held in the light with a certain joint reverence and pride, like an artist admiring his first masterpiece, "The beast."

"No," Ralph said sternly, finding himself suddenly and standing firm. "I've had enough of this – this _superstition_. We looked all over that rock, the beast wasn't there. It doesn't exist, and you'd just be scaring the littluns and I'm tired of hearing them cry in the night. Haven't you noticed? They talk and scream when they dream, the littluns and even some of the others as if – " He held himself.

Merridew watched his follower, his face red with the blood he had given him, from the thing they had killed together, and stood silently for a long while. "Just because we didn't see the beast, doesn't mean it isn't there," he concluded after the pause.

"I don't believe that," Ralph said. "So just, leave the head. I'm not scared. It's just like throwing salt over your shoulder if you spill some at the dinner table." A memory slashed through his mind, a sudden longing to go home where everything was pleasant and good-natured, burned him. "Nothing'd happen anyway and you'd need to clean up the salt. It's just – why should we bother? I mean, getting our hands all messy."

"_My _hands all messy," Merridew snarled and Ralph had to quickly concede in order to placate Merridew's violence, which had not been released after killing the pig.

"Your hands," Ralph agreed. "But let's just, I've never seen the beast. And until I see it, I won't believe nightmares and – and the bogey-man. So let's just leave the head and go back. And have a feast, and tell the littluns we didn't find anything. We'll be able to think clearer when there isn't any fear clogging up our brains."

"I'm taking the head," Merridew said viciously. He snatched Ralph's spear and struck it in a crack in the ground. "It's better to be safe than sorry, and I'd rather be safe. The littluns don't need to know we did this, but I need to know."

"But they'll see – the head's missing –" Ralph protested.

"Look, shut up!" Merridew roared. "I'm chief, not you! So just trust me on this one! I heard something in the night – some sort of whispers, and they were talking about me!" Ralph's breath didn't leave his lungs, which was precisely the problem as his entire body froze and he ceased to were alone and Merridew held the knife. "And I don't know how you'd feel, but when I hear some sort of voices talking about me, all whispery and echo-ey – It's got to be the beast!"

Ralph was trapped, and he chose to say nothing and watch on as Merridew planted the sow's head on the stick. In silence, they skewered the pig onto the other spear. Ralph slid his knife back into his belt and they picked up the carcass. Feeling extremely subdued, they began to continue to walk back in mostly silence. The joint hunt had momentarily brought them together, and thenthrew them apart.

Ralph could feel the blood begin to dry and harden on his face. He felt ill and the strong copper smell invaded his nose, but he refused to stop and turn out his stomach. He could not show any weakness to Merridew, he simply could not afford it because the boy who picked the other end of the stick to carry, behind him, was willingly blood-splattered and grinning like the pig's head had.

Eventually they reached the beach and Merridew stuck up some lazy conversation."I wish I had some dazzle paint." Ralph's curiosity, out of destruction and ash, had been piqued and he turned his head to look at Merridew – only turning enough to catch a glimpse of red. "For in the war. Like things trying to look like something else – like moths on a tree trunk."

"Isn't this blood enough of a mask?" asked Ralph.

"They'll see the red," Merridew explained. "They don't smell me. They see me, I think. Something pink under the trees. If only I'd some green!"

"You could take some charcoal," Ralph suggested, recalling Simon getting soot and charcoal all over his face from working with the fire all day. "From the rub it all over your face, so you wouldn't be quite so noticeable."

"Good idea," Merridew approved. "I'll do that."

"Also, I've been thinking," Ralph began, seeing that he and Merridew's tentative relationship had suddenly and unexpectedly again been salvaged. "Could we maybe make some bow and arrows? I mean, _bow_particularly. It'd be good to hunt, plus, I read in some book that if you use a bow you can make a fire a lot easier and faster than the other way. It'd be good for both of us."

"Both of us?" Merridew echoedwith a warning edge in his voice. "You mean I could hunt animals, and you could make fire and smoke?"

"I mean, good for all of us," Ralph said quickly. "Not only could you hunt, you could cook faster. I imagine you'd even be able to make small fires of your own if you didn't want to walk all the way back to camp." He could tell that Merridew liked the idea of complete independence from Simon and Ralph, but to Ralph's dismay he did not consent to looking into the idea.

"I don't know," he said. "It sounds like it would just take away the fun from the hunt, shooting and missing from far away. Besides, you can make the fire just fine without it. Plus, we'd be making little fires everywhere; no doubt we'd catch the forest on fire eventually. No, better this way."

"Yeah," Ralph agreed, dejectedly. He knew they probably wouldn't even know the first thing of trying to build a bow and arrow as it was. "Okay." They walked all the way back to the beach where Ralph had first arrived, not saying a word.

Playing in the shallow waters of the lagoon were the littluns, who weren't very much supervised as they splashed and played away the day. They did however take notice whenRalph and Merridew passed by with the pig on their backs. They had not received too much meat, but enough to get the taste of it so they followed closely, chattering and giggling and trying to question and prod Ralph and Merridew who, for the most part, ignored them.

They followed the stream to the top of the hill where the ground leveled out and not far from there was the camp, and the fire crackled steadily as ever. "Alright," said Merridew. "Is everybody here?" The littluns announced that they'd run over and get the boys that were making the shelters to come over and Merridew nodded in approval. Though they were scatter-minded and not trustworthy, they were eager to please their chief and that made them as good as any messengers.

"Alright, let's get it on the fire," Merridew said, so they hitched up the pig in a more comfortable position on their shoulders and they lumbered over to the crackling flames. Grunting, they prepared to place the pig on the y-shaped sticks as they had the previous time, but Merridew noticed something.

"Oi!" he yelled and Ralph nearly dropped his end of the pig at the unexpected rise in volume. "Weirdo!Whyare you sleeping?"Dark eyes fluttered open and the boy looked horrified at the blood splashedacross Merridew's face. Surely behind the blood Merridew's face was just as red because he looked as though he wished to throttle Simon.

Indeed, they hadn't seen when walking over because the tree that Simon leant on also blocked their view of him but now on the other side they could see that soot-faced Simon had dozed off. Now, however, his eyes were open wide and desperately apologetic. The boys that had been building the shelters rounded up in a circle round the fire, staring aghast and accusingly at Simon.

"It could've gotten out of control!" Merridew raged. "You could've burnt down the whole island because you decided to take a little nap! Do you _want_ to kill us all?" Simon's mouth opened, and it appeared as if words, namely apologies, want to tumble out but found it incapable. Ralph felt terrible for Simon because he began to sweat and the colour left his face.

"And _you_," Merridew turned around to face Roger. "You were here all morning and you didn't notice that this weirdo was falling asleep! You could've watched the fire! And _you_," he then faced Samneric who had the courteousness to look properly abashed. "You _also_ helped with the fire once! In fact, all of you –" Merridew dropped the pig and spun around pointing his red fingers at everyone. "Could've made sure this didn't happen!"

He appeared to trembled with anger and Simon twisted closer to the tree and further away from Merridew. Merridew walked right up to Simon and looked down on the boy. "I'm sorry, but I just can't trust _you_ with the fire anymore. Not when you shirk your duties so easily, I never should've trusted you in the first place. I mean, you're that boy, aren't you? The soprano?The swooner?"All the boys had no gathered and they laughed meanly.

"I mean, what if you fainted again – if the fire got just a little bit too hot for you, what then, eh?" Merridew snarled, the laughter of the boys egging him on. "Well I know what then! A fire would start and it would burn up this whole island and it would kill us _all _and that'd be all _your_ fault, if I hadn't come in time! It'd burn all the fruit, and it'd burn up what pigs there's left and _everything _including _us. _You'd kill us all!"

Suddenly the gravity of what could have been tumbled on the boys, and it turned them against the skinny, long-haired short boy who fainted all the time and could hit all the notes that a girl could. Merridew had pounced upon Simon. "What have you to say for yourself?" he snarled, and the rest of the boys glares were equal to his.

"At – At – At – A-at least it'd burn the s-so called b-beast," Simon stuttered, looking utterly terrified. Splattering on the ground a few feet away from Simon, scarlet globules of spit and blood flew out of his mouth. The slap sounded like a crash of thunder and every single boy's heartbeat pulsed in time in those moments. Merridew massaged the back of his hand which had reddened from the strength of which Simon's face had smacked against it.

Simon looked like he wanted to cry. He looked like he wanted to turn into a blubbering mess of horror and hysterics like the littluns, and cry and cry for all the members of his family, and for everyone who had ever loved him – for the places he had been and seen and the goodness of humanity and curl up into a little ball on the ground, simply to sob and weep until they were rescued. To gear his entire existence to tears. But he did not.

His body shook with repressed sobs, and he choked back a whimper. A scream was clearly fighting its way up its throat, and it was almost like suppressing a hiccup. Pressure built up in his chest, and behind his eyes but he knew if he were to let one tear fall it would never stop until he had cried enough to fill a sea. So he didn't cry, nor did he touch the reddening print on his face. He looked straight up in Merridew's eyes, not in defiance but in measuring impartiality. He was frightened, his hands were shaking uncontrollably and so erratically they were nearly a blur. But he would not look away, would not show any of his emotions, even the anger of injustice and the obvious manipulation Merridew was preforming and the rest of the boys were falling into. The eye contact, for the rest of the boys, was a clear admission of guilt.

"I am sorry, Simon," Merridew said, voice completely under control and calm while Simon's entire body trembled with his feelings. "But I can't let you be in charge of such an important job as taking care of the fire. You're not trustworthy, and you nearly killed all of us. So I've decided, _Roger_, you'll be in charge of the fire." Roger looked mutinous. "You know how to make it, and we know you won't be weak and fall asleep like the questions?"

Roger's voice also trembled with some type of emotion, but his words came out in obedience, "No sir."

"Good," Merridew smirked, a true god on earth. "Simon, don't sit there anymore." Simon, with shuddering limbs, felt his way up the tree and stumbled away from his position. "Roger can sit there now." Roger glared about the place, cast a glance at Simon, but did sit down sullenly. "This is good," Merridew said.

"It's a good thing!" he repeated. "Now we know better than before who we can trust with the fire, and with our very _lives_. And now! We can feast!" And the entire forest lit up with the delighted primitive screams of that special combination of greed, to be sated, and joy. It was the littluns that all contributed in placing the pig over the fire, and no saw Roger smile when one boy's hand got momentarily stuck and had been slightly burned. The moment was soon overturned in exchange for the rising smell of cooking meat.

Simon had not sat down; instead he stood, leaning shakily against a tree a good five feet away from the fire. "Me and Ralph, we explored today," Merridew was saying, as he cheerfully hacked away meat that barely smoking and handed it off to the boys. "And we didn't find any sign of the beast."

"That's because there isn't one," Ralph said quickly. He was stunned at his voice, unexpectedly rough and deep from not speaking. Simon's face jerked up and his eyes landed on Ralph's blood-smeared skin, trailing down to his stained shirt. Though he did appear alarmed he did not seem surprised and he began to look at the ground again, softly mumbling something to himself.

"Anyway," said Merridew. "What we did find was a really wacco place. It looks like a castle – like a big rock castle, it's a terrific place for a fort. There's water and its right near the pigs and everything."

"There's not a lot of fruit," Ralph spoke up again.

"There's plenty enough," Merridew shrugged, handing Ralph his own chunk of meat. "And it's got the best view of the island without being too high up or too far 's a cave in the side of the rock and there's this swimming water right next to it. It'd make an absolutely smashing fort." The high voices began chattering again.

"Like in Robin Hood?"

"No stupid, it's a rock cave!"

"So like in Tom Sawyer where they –"

"Can we go see it –"

"Bet it's like in those spy stories where they hide out and –"

"Shut up!" Merridew yelled and they all fell silent. Then he smiled, and they all smiled in response as if this too was by command. "I think one of these days we'll all go up there and you can see how great it'd be for us. Also, I've decided we're all going to hunt one of these days too, even the littluns cos we've all got to learn how to hunt." Though most of the spears were more than twice as tall as some of the littluns, everyone grew excited at this revelation. "So tuck in!" And they did, fiercely tearing into the meat.

"What about my food?" Simon asked with a dull voice.

"You betrayed us," was Merridew's response. "We could've died. So you don't get any meat tonight. You can go ahead and eat fruit though."

"I'll do that," Simon said, walking off. Ralph watched Merridew carefully, and when he wasn't looking Ralph too raced off in the direction Simon had gone, a piece of bloody meat clutched in one hand. He discovered Simon, sitting in the stream, washing the blood in his mouth and soot from his face.

"Simon," Ralph breathed. Simon had lost all inclination to speak at all, particularly with Ralph. "Come on, eat," Ralph pleaded as he sat down on the land next to Simon at the stream. He noticed that Simon's body was still quivering from what had happened earlier and he jerked at the contact when Ralph put his hand on his shoulder, splashing water.

"Please, _please_ go away," Simon begged, his hands now going to his shirt, desperately scrubbing at the dirt that had lodged up in it through the day.

"You have to eat," Ralph said stubbornly. "No matter what Merridew says I'm not going to let you just eat fruit."

"But you've got his blood all over your face," Simon said, fingers gesturing and trembling violently.

"No, it's the pig's," Ralph replied, confused.

"Exactly," Simon sobbed, desperately. Suddenly Simon was leaning against the other side of the stream, being sick. A few minutes later, when he was entirely sure that there was nothing left to sick up he leant back again, tears rolling down his face. "This is – this is . . . he's going to make me hunt with him, I know it. And – And a spear's going to slip or something and its going to be me roasted on that fire!"

"Simon!" Ralph admonished.

"This is getting out of anyone's control, Ralph," Simon sobbed, roughly wiping his face. "Did you even _see_ what he did?" Simon's stomach reviled the notion and once again he was propped up on the opposite banks.

"He was just upset," Ralph reasoned, his hands patting Simon awkwardly since Simon was permitting the touch. "He has a point, you know. The fire could've burned the island down."

"And you do-on'tth-th-think I wou-would've noticed?" Simon hiccupped, approaching hysterics. "The- The stream is ri-right here! I w-wou –"

"Ssssh," Ralph hissed, growing alarmed. "You'll pass out if you don't calm down." Simon inhaled a few times without ever taking any real breath.

"Y-you're right," he at last managed to croak. His breaths were stifled and furious as he tried to breath in only through his nose which at first made him panicky but then calmed him down. When the fear and resentment in his eyes had faded out and Simon had ceased to tremble, Ralph attempted to offer the dripping meat to him.

"Eat," he insisted again.

"I – I won't touch anything he's touched, killed," Simon hissed, suddenly furious again. "Th-this is _raw_ an-anyway. We're not sav-savages. _I'm_ not." And looking decisively, he cupped water and brought it to splash against Ralph's face. Ralph spluttered indignantly. But then Simon laughed.

Wiping away the water and along with it the blood, he noticed as it stained his hands, he saw Simon laughing. A full-on belly laugh, rich and deep and not seeming to be approaching an end anytime soon."Y-Your face!" Simon choked. And they both began to laugh. What seemed like hours afterwards Ralph would look into the fairly still water of the stream and see his reflection, surprised at what he blood that had not melted away when the water struck his face or when he had tried to dry it, had lines of skin trickling through it. These breaks in blood had been eroded away by another type of water altogether.

Back at the fire, Merridew knew of Ralph's absence but he chose to ignore it. Instead, when the fire had been dancing on another object in the fire, he reached in and pulled out a stick of charcoal. Some of the boys watched in curiosity as he, in turn, watched it. "Samneric," he said. "Get me a coconut. An empty one, with water in it." Bewilderedly, they obliged and he gave a short smile in thanks. He had two large leaves by his place by the fire, one contained white clay and the other contained red. He had collected them yesterday during the day but it was only now that he felt daring enough to actually put on his face.

He took the clay and painted a circle of white around one eye-socket and another on his opposite cheek. Then, taking the red clay he rubbed the colour over the other half of his face. Finally, he took the bar of charcoal and slashed a black strike across his face from right ear to left jaw. The look on their faces was reason enough to grin a frightening, animalistic grin of power. He knew, and they knew but he did not leap to his feet and begin to act as such. Instead, civilized as any, he leant against the tree. One of these days the shelters would be half-standing and they wouldn't need to but now he'd have to make do, closing his eyes. He could hear them shiver from five feet away.

When Ralph finally came back the fire had burnt down while the night had invaded the sky, and the pig had been entirely devoured. Merridew could see even in the darkness that Ralph's face was clean of blood and looked naked because of it. Also his shirt was wet and the stains had been washed out. He knew that Ralph liked the weirdo, despite his cowardice and general oddities. The boy's aversion to hunting, his inability to speak properly or at all in front of people, and most of all his rebelliousness, all of this needed to be rectified, and soon otherwise Ralph, athletic and not too stupid, would start thinking for himself. Merridew knew that there was a possibility that some would follow.

Ralph was likeable, and Merridew knew that he could make a great leader, so he could not afford him to get his own ideas. They were going to have fun on this island, Merridew thought, or else. And next to losing a valuable alley, he didn't want to lose a possible friend either. But Ralph's disappearance after the skinny little weirdo and reappearance with a drenched shirt and a clean face, did not worry him. Merridew's reflection rippled wwith a horrible distorted , lust at the very least, was thicker than water, after all.


	4. Chapter 4

CHAPTER FOUR

Back in simpler days Ralph had taken a black permanent marker and improved his bunkmate's face with it. It had not gone over well and he had gotten in huge trouble with the Headmaster but the look of outrage on his friend's face had made it all well worth it. But now it was the Headmaster that had drawn on _Ralph's_ face as he had been sleeping and now was peering silently down on him, waiting for a reaction.

"Look," the authority of the island said proudly, looking smugly on his handiwork. He held a coconut full of water which Ralph took into his hands as he sat up. A monster peered back in him in reflection; it looked like a battlefield of red and white and black, each taking a separate quadrant on his face. Ralph could see the odd resemblances of the place it used to be but now the frames of his face were covered with a whole different kind of skin.

"We're going to hunt now, then?" he asked and the head chorister led his followers in chuckling sinisterly. "Right then," Ralph grunted as he got to his feet. The clay on his face was cold and itched but he knew better than to touch the mask that Merridew had created. He ambled over to his spear and picked it up and held it close to his side asa third leg as he looked at the rest of the boys.

"Shall we rouse the weirdo?" Robert asked in hush tones. Simon lay curled close to the fire pit which Roger was still working on lighting. He snored gently and the boys were struck with a flash of nostalgia, their friends on sleepovers or their brothers, breathing with such little lungs. They quashed their feelings swiftly and turned to their leader who in turn was looking at Ralph.

"What's the point?" Ralph asked and Merridew accepted it.

"Let's go," he murmured and his hunters all quickly clambered after him, slicing through the were rustling and the birds were beginning to laugh, it was just a bit after sunrise. "We're going to Castle Rock, too," Merridew announced. "So you all can see it. And if we can hunt, well, that's good too."

They thrashed their way through the jungle and ran several times when someone announced they saw a pig, always a false alarm but always a great deal fun. Breathing disturbed and passing each other fruit they dwelled on the very edge of hysteric excitement. When they arrived at the rock, Roger had finally managed to light the fire and it crackled gleefully under Merridew's name.

"How much longer until we get to the rock?" Maurice asked no so annoyingly but curiously.

"Not much longer," Ralph answered. Signs of his previous adventure up this path began to show themselves and Ralph remembered

"Oi, Ralph," inquired Robert as they began to tromp through some thicker parts of the jungle. Vines wrapped themselves around trees like feather boas around scarlet women, but looked ill and snakelike in their colour. Darkness sprouted up like weeds in the woods and even at this time of day the boys were not all settled and feeling comfortable wandering in such parts of the island. Many preferred conversation to the empty sounds of snapping twigs and evil-sounding birds, and this would do as good as any as it was something the boys were curious about anyway. "Why are you still wearing your shirt?"

"Huh?" Ralph asked, not fully computing the question. Once he did, he glanced down to his chest and the once-gray shirt that was covering it. It used to be completely, stubbornly sea-gray but now had faded a yellower colour in the sun, and had become stained with dirt and no matter how much Simon had tried to wash it, faint maroon bloodstains remained.

"I mean, I get shorts, most of us still got our shorts on but my shirt got dirty in less than two days!" Robert explained and most boys turned to watch the conversation with some curiosity. All of them were shirtless, most importantly their chief was, yet Ralph wore his shirt. Even Simon, the oddest boy in the bunch took his shirt off in occasion but they had never seen Ralph without his shirt.

"Yeah," said Bill. "I tried wearing mine for a while but after we built the huts on the first day it actually got _hard_. I could crack it!" The boys chuckled in knowledgeable sympathy.

"Well, we haven't got much left, have we?" Ralph sighed. "I mean, all we got left from – well, from the old world is our shirts."

"And our pants!" cried Maurice and everyone laughed in appreciation.

"I suppose those too, most of the biguns anyway," Ralph laughed. Many of the littluns had decided to forego underwear altogether since they had been taken short too many times, mostly because of the bad quality of fruit they had been eating and in the large quantities that they had.

"But wouldn't it be, easier?" pressed Robert.

"Course it would be," Ralph shrugged. "But it's not like we have an easy life as it is. I mean, sure we don't have to do arithmetic or spelling anymore but . . . we've got to hunt, and keep the fire going. It's not as easy as I thought it'd be when we first got on here. Not as fun."

"What do you mean, not as fun?" Merridew spoke up and he was hostile.

"I mean, we've all been working, haven't we? It's not like, back home. Where mummy and daddy would work and cook for us. We have to do all that for ourselves. We've hardly even made a home. We've finished one shelter, and it looks like crap, and barely started the second and we said we'd do three!" Ralph said, not wishing to sound as if he was complaining but it was surely the way the boys took it.

"It ain't that difficult to pick some fruit –"

"We hardly have to do nothing!"

"Oi you only helped so long before you went hunting –"

"Sorry, sorry!" Ralph cried and they hushed down. "What I mean to say is, our trouble's different now. And you know grownups would have this all done in no time. They'd have finished all the shelters, and they would've maybe start planting stuff too and they'd have a government and everything. They wouldn't be afraid of the dark, or quarrel, or talk about a beast, they'd build a ship . . . At the very least they'd have an easier way to make fire. A way we could all make fire whenever we wanted to."

"But then what would we do for leaders?" Merridew asked. "No doubt if we all went off on our own we would've started getting into fights. Tribal wars and stuff like the people in Africa and India! At least this way we hunt together and eat together.'

"Yeah, but it's harder. Don't say it isn't harder than it was before," Ralph said.

"What'd you mean it's not fun, though?" Merridew said. His entire body was hunched like a wildcat ready to spring and rip Ralph to shreds.

"I mean," Ralph said. "What would be fun is if we didn't need to do anything. If there was some magical boar tree that could give us food. If we could light those candle-buds up on the mountain and carry them around with us. If we could just play all day. But we can't, can we?"

"What do you mean we can't, that's all the littluns do," Bill said, a bit resentfully. It was true, all the littluns ever seemed to do was eat and secrete, living off the meat that the biguns gave them and making up their own adventures as they would had they been home in their parents' gardens.

"That's cos they're kids, and we're older. We can do more. When they've grown up enough they'll do stuff, too," Merridew explained. "Once they're strong enough and smart enough to do things like we are." The boys all bristled with some sort of extreme pride, all but one.

"Hear that," Ralph laughed bitterly. "We're going to grow up on this island. It's not like in Peter Pan." The boys felt the graveness in Ralph's voice seep into their very flesh. "If we don't get rescued, we're going to grow old here."

"We'll be all wrinkly, and our hair will be down to our feet!" Maurice declared, in a sudden bout of laughter. Everyone saw this as a good reason to laugh away their cares but Ralph stood firm.

"Can't you see that's _why_ it's important that we work?" Ralph cried.

"But I thought you didn't want to?"

"Well that's exactly why I wish we weren't here! I wish we didn't have to work, hunt or keep the fire, but we've got to. You know, we don't even need to hunt. No doubt one day we'll kill all the pigs –" there was a pause among the boys for pride. " – And we won't be able to hunt anymore even if we wanted to! We don't need to hunt at all, at least not so often. I know the fish we catch doesn't taste as good as the pigs –"

"I'm allergic to shellfish," Robert mumbled.

"But we don't need to hunt in the very least!" Ralph repeated, overruling every slight interruption. "Can't you see, the most important thing is the fire?"

"I don't want to go back," Maurice suddenly admitted. He had paused in his step and looked utterly unashamed. "I – I never liked school. And my parents put me into all these afterschool services. And – I didn't like Father John. I didn't like him, and no one ever believed me. I _don't_ want to _ever_go back."

"But just because you didn't like it there, doesn't mean that we shouldn't keep the fire tended," Ralph said firmly. "Besides, if we ever did get found, you could just run away in the bushes. I reckon the island would be a better place if there was less of us anyway."

"I reckon so," Maurice mumbled.

"I didn't, still don't like school," Ralph muttered. "And this is a great island. But I'd . . . I'd rather visit it on holiday if you know what I mean." The boys chuckled and chucked stones about, flattening aside ferns as they passed. They had broached the topic of school and back home, and they were sweetly shy about it.

"We liked school alright," said one of the twins. "School just didn't like us," snickered the other and they laughed to themselves for awhile, muttering, "Boy – you-are-driving-me-slowly-insane!" and the word "Waxy" resurfaced several times in their chattering conversation.

"I miss snow," said one boy. "I wish it was Christmas. Me da was going to get me a new bike. Was going to get a job with the paper route."

"I reckon'll you'll still be able to do it when we get back," Bill said, flushing with confidence. "Maybe even two bikes. Whenever I ran off from home my mum'd be really mad at first and then she'd hug me and cry but then she'd make cookies and cakes and all sorts of sweets. Felt bad, of course, but now . . . especially now . . . I mean, you can understand." They all did, and they all missed the various sweets that they had been allowed on occasions. Memories of smacks on the wrists when they'd try to smuggle some away to their bedrooms, but that had only ever made the cookies taste sweeter once they knew they had gotten away from it. "I miss my mum."

"I think I see a boar," a boy offered half-heartedly, feeling sick with wanting."Big tusks."

"Yeah," came the reply.

"We're here!" announced Merridew loudly, violently slashing away the tall grass with his spear. "See it? What did I tell you?" The boys were all shell-shocked, looking up at the large, towering thing as if it held some sort of religious significance for them. One boy was even so surprised he dropped to his knees in front of it.

"Wicked," murmured one of the twins. "It's huge! Must be a hundred feet tall!"

"I told you," Merridew said, smirking in the affirmative. "C'mon then." The bridge was still as thin and unsteady as it had been when Ralph and he had reluctantly crossed it the first time but this time Merridew seemed to bound carelessly across it, almost as though to beat Ralph inwalking across even through a jaunty little signal of the hunter to invite them closer and display its safety, to which Ralph rolled his eyes.

The boys piled across the bridge, whispering in awe of the depths of the water below. Beneath their feet lay bubbling waters, with seemingly unending deepness as if could fall in it and never stop sinking. Seaweed clung to the rock walls a dirty green colour, mottled with yellows and splashes of burgundy. It fanned out in such ways that hair does in water, revealing the treacherous and complicated currents that lurked beneath the border of the land of air.

"My daddy says there's thing, what d'you call 'em that make ink – squids – that are hundreds of yards long and eat whales whole," Maurice said. The boys did not find this difficult to believe as they scanned the water's inky shadows, and combining this with the slick mermaid-like movement of the seaweed. One boy made a momentary start which resulted in setting everybody in alarm, before the boy apologized.

"And you didn't see no beast, right?" Robert asked, as the littlest one still needing some confirmation.

"That's right," Ralph answered as they at last found themselves onto the pink bastion. "Not a single sign of one. Just some birds." They began to clamber up the sides of the tower, steadily wrapping themselves around it, scooting up one level to the next until at last they were facing the cave. Merridew picked up a bird's nest that smelled and looked noticeably rotton and threw it off into the sea below. Everyone watched mesmerized as the rock side and the wind bounced it for nearly a minute until it finally hit the water and began to float away.

"Golly," murmured Maurice. "D'youreckon the littluns will be alright to get up here?"

"Well they've got to grow up sometime," Merridew said and again everyone felt warm with pride at their leader's approval.

"There's very little water," Ralph warned.

"We could always have some filled up with a coconut," Merridew countered.

"It'll also be a bother to get fire up here. Plus, with the wind I bet it'd be cold at night."

"We wouldn't need to rebuild the shelters every time they fell down."

"It's dangerous if_ we_ fall. We'd be dead as soon as we hit the water, if we don't hit the rocks first." Many boys visibly winced at this.

"Plus we're in a castle!" Merridew concluded.

"Yeah, a pink one," Ralph sneered and the boys laughed at that despite themselves.

"Yeah, well, take a look at this," Merridew said, walking with wide strides and flailing arms to the very tip of the mountain, the boys following closely behind. At last at the very top they felt they could appreciate the full view that the bastion gave them. They could see in the distance their very own beach, their pink coral peeking out of the ocean, the tips of the trees from where the fire was exuding. This was not what Merridew brought them to see, Ralph knew.

Merridew was leaning against an unstable rock and he smiled with wild abandonment. "A little help would you?" he requested as he pressed against the rock. Nearly all the boys leapt at the task, pushing and shoving against the rock. Ralph hung back and eyed his own spear in aninner-argument. He saw that they had chosen the largest rock and now their faces were turning purple in their attempts to push it over. At last he decided and he slid the spear beneath the rock. Then, leaning against it, a single boy sent a rock that was bigger than five boys toppling into the ocean. Ralph's spear also fell but one of the twins gave them one of their spears in admiration.

"So we can crush people," Ralph scoffed, folding his arms at the tremendous crash on the ground below.

"Crush enemies," Merridew corrected.

"Oh, _what_ enemies," Ralph snapped. Then he desperately wished to reel back in the words at the look on Merridew's painted face. Neither boy said anything for a long while after that, but they didn't need to as the people chattered predictably about the crash and about the advantages of using such methods in hunting. This brought their minds back on meat indecently soon after they had been thinking about their mother's biscuits. Excitedly they walked down the tower, seemingly no longer frightened of its heights.

Once they had crossed the bridge again they had arrived to the conclusion that they should hunt before heading back for the others and Merridew encouraged this. When one goes looking for trouble, one doesn't generally find it immediately but give it enough tries, and one will though often by accident. This was the case in this pig, the huge male boar that almost seemed to know that they had killed the mother of his piglets, enraged and wild. Nothing had prepared the biguns for his rage.

Merridew with no knife quickly put up his spear in hopes to impale the pig. This plan of action failed as the pig barreled right past him and nearly into one of the twins. It was Maurice that first managed to injure the huge, unceasing force. He had thrown his spear into the vague vicinity of the pig, and it screamed in anger and injustice. This encouraged the boys to be braver, to move closer. The droplets of blood in the grass roused their wish to see more and more – to rip into the creature until they could expose it as what it was – blood and guts and fat wrapped in and around bleach-white bones. The sort of thing that, once its life was abolished would begin to decay and sink into the sort of thing that they could kill.

They attempted to circle around it, as they would do to other pigs in the past, but he would have none of it. Using his horns he bucked away the boys' spears, though Maurice did manage to get a good jab at his forehead that caused him to bleed. It did not, however, cause him to stop in his rampage. He took Ralph's attempt at trying to placate him, by knocking away the spear in such a way that it also knocked Ralph off his feet. Ralph scrambled away and reclaimed his weapon before leaping at the pig again.

One of the twins managed to sink his spear deep into the pig's belly, but the battle was far from over. Screaming and squealing the pig bowled into Merridew and slicing up his belly with his tusks. Merridew, however, felt no inclination to lose just yet either, and valiantly hung on, trying to stab the boar with his spear, which was too long and too difficult to hold in such a situation. The boar was distracted, however, and several of the boys managed to stab him with the spears. Rivers of blood were now leaking from the pig's body, splashing on the ground thick, glossy and impossibly red.

Sensing defeat on the horizon, the pig staggered and glanced, though his blood was seeping into his eyes and blinding him, at them. His very posture was accusatory fore he, bumbling and bleeding, – he rocketed off the edge of the red cliffs and fell into the was a splash that they could barely hear through the thundering of blood in their brains. The boys were left, breathing heavily and with such disappointment that they could not bring themselves to be angry. Their spears clattered to the ground, and one rolled off to also join the drowning boar at sea.

It was hours after the hunters had woken up that Simon finally stirred. He was a bit lost at first, without the fire, but he steadily realized that he could at last explore the island. It was a little bit after the sunrise when most of the boys began to stir, leaping to their feet and running to the beach and the forest, to the adventures they'd put on pause. Simon had jerked at the noise waking up and finding with half-closed eyes two sticks to create a fire with. But then he heard the familiar noise, and he blinked away sleep and saw Roger already on top of it rubbing furiously. Simon's heart sunk and he looked around the forest, noting with satisfaction the candle-buds hidden away in one of the trees. Perhaps he'd help with the shelters.

Through trial and error he stumbled through the shrubbery when he finally arrived at where the huts were half managing to stand. One had been completed, the other nearly finished and the third a skeleton of a complete mess. They had all been abandoned, he realized, probably by Merridew's promise to check out the fort on the mountain and the silent declaration that they would migrate there, despite Ralph's insistence that it wasn't as good as this place was. His hands idly brushed against the leaves of one hut and they fell off, giving Simon a start. He looked around, mortified, and seeing that no one had seen him, he attempted to thatch it back on while only succeeding to a knock a few more branches off. He quickly scurried away from his vandalism.

The sand was dry where the shelters were, and his toes sunk into their hotness. Bits of the white sand were carried upwards with wind and hit and stuck to his dewy legs. Not for the first time Simon wished he could rip off his clothes and prowl around as naked as Merridew or his hunters, instead of being locked up inside the hot, stiff confines of his shirt and shorts. But he also steadfastly refused to rid himself of the dignity of being dressed, no matter how much easier it would be and nicer it would feel with the warm wind blowing on nothing but his skin.

Already sweat was pooling up on his neck, everyone's hair had grown a little but Simon's hair had been long to start with. Now he couldn't imagine why he'd dealt with it so long and he considered getting ahold of Merridew's knife somehow and cutting it all off. Simon found himself missing soap, and he knew there was some sort of recipe to making soap – something to do with ash and fat but he didn't know how to go about it. Next to this not an ounce of fat was ever left after a feast. He felt ashamed for his blubbering the previous night, and embarrassed for Ralph's sake having to listen to him.

But he had been horrified. Jack Merridew had always been bossy, and now where he could be completely in charge – that was what Simon had feared at the very beginning. But he never once thought that Merridew would get angry with him. The red slap had turned into a blue bruise, though it was still very painful and he found his entire jaw tingling with hurt whenever he opened his mouth. Simon had been too shocked to even respond with his usual customary smile, because never had he been subjected to such dishonor and insult.

Merridew had never noticed him before he and Ralph became, friends in Ralph's own words, but Simon suspected it was more to do with the fire. It wasn't that Simon had fallen asleep before it; it was regular for the person who made and watched the fire to doze off a little every now and again to entertain themselves with little dreams. Simon suspected it was because he simply didn't want Simon to have anything to do with the fire anymore, but then he also wanted him to hunt with him. It confused Simon no end but he knew he shouldn't trust _any_ of it, leaving it and continuing to walk alongside the beach.

All he had ever seen of the island had been in the night, and the brightness of it all shocked his eyes. The water glittered with sunlight and the horizon and boys splashing in the shallow lagoon released jewels shimmering from the water. The very air seemed to ripple with the beginnings of mirages and Simon stood still, transfixed by what he saw. The island branched off in a billion fading copies, filling the sky with more of this land as if the island took place of the clouds in the clear sky. Each vision of the island twinkled in reverse and as he moved, moved with him. He felt as though he could stand here forever, merely absorbing the sight but instead turned and by whim walked away from it, the islands following.

The sun slid further down in the sky, and he found the flickers of the mind melting and becoming one with glaring light. He was following the trail of footprints that were trailed in the sand behind what he supposed were the hunters. They came in many shapes and sizes, all bare and crossing footprints lending extra toes to some. With their progress the trees and ferns hanging over the beach were knocked aside and Simon followed numbly on, the sea rolling in his was a kind of emptiness in his mind now, no memories, no worries but simply the sound of the sea and the resounding decision to find Ralph and question him where they had all gone.

These days on the island had been remarkably good for his health, he mused. Grownups had always been advised by doctors to take a vacation, away from the stress and troubles of daily life. No one recommended this for a kid, despite the fact a child's life, Simon's in particular, a lot harder than most of grownups. But here now, finally being released from the fire, was his chance. His chance to let go. And in this realization, came the reply that he couldn't. It wasn't in himself to stop worrying, to give in to the lull of the island that could possibly become a permanent fixture in his life, perhaps in time his home. Simon had never much felt a home at all; hospitals had always been the most familiar place to him even though he hated them. Perhaps someday he would find a home though, he wrapped his arms around himself, though perhaps he didn't need one.

At last there lay a hard horizon, cruel and stubborn as if it was answering 'no' to every question hurled at to get nearer to the infinitely blue sea and its twin sky he crossed down to the rocks, pink and angular. He saw Ralph staring off into the sea of impossibilities and he quickly padded his way over to rectify any damage it had caused. He called Ralph's name but Ralph was far too trapped in his own self-hell to notice Simon until Simon had to come so physically close to him that his lips nearly brushed against Ralph's ear as he spoke. Magically, he knew what to say for once.

"You'll get back to where you came from," he assured Ralph, nodding fervently as he spoke to lend his confidence. Ralph's entire body had gone taut with stress, a rock clutched so tightly in his hands it looked as if it needed to be pried away with a crowbar. Simon followed Ralph's line of vision back to the sea, and he was struck with the difference between the mirage-infested skies on the other beaches of the island. This sky lent nothing but the cold, brutal truth – that from this island they could not escape. Simon swallowed but he was filled with a sort of certainty, and now was sure that at least Ralph would get away, or at least was sure that that was what needed to be said.

"It's so big, I mean –" Ralph said, turning to look at Simon. Simon felt no self-consciousness as Ralph combed through it for some sort of answer. He moved to stand in front of Ralph and to block his vision from the horror of inevitability. His hands landed on the rock that Ralph was clutching and he brushed the pads of his thumbs over Ralph's knuckles reassuringly, and as he felt them relax under his ministrations he gently removed the rock from them.

"All the same. You'll get back alright. I think so, anyway," Simon said, soft and seriously. He sat down next to Ralph, the rock now loosely, awkwardly held between his own fingers. They both looked at the sea now, but were no longer frightened or apprehensive of it. They simply looked at it as it was – big, yes, but beautiful and something they had never seen in their previous life. Some of the strain had left Ralph's body and he let himself relax.

"Got a ship in your pocket?" he asked Simon, smiling bitterly. Ralph's new face had Simon alarmed but the familiar smile reminded him that it was indeed Ralph buried beneath all the paint, but he wasn't lost like Merridew or the rest.

"How do you know then?" Simon grinned wickedly.

"You're batty," Ralph said curtly, before beginning to laugh. It felt wonderful to laugh, the rush of the hunt could not compare to this simple, lulling feeling of comradeship. Simon stood up and hurled the rock into the sea, inciting a tremendous splash. They fell back against the rocks, flat on their backs which made everything twice as funny and a great way to laugh. Presently they laughed themselves out nearly and Ralph sat up again, resting arms against another rock and using it almost as a chair.

Solitude was a feeling that did not make you feel bitingly lonely, but rather made you pleased to feel alone – giddy and calm, for you didn't feel as though you were alone, you felt as though you were a part of everything. In the wind running through their ears for a few minutes the boys felt that lovely heart-aching feeling of solitude despite the fact they were right next to each other. Isolation, they recognized, was something they cherished and would not be too much to eventually pursue it. Presently the wind bowed down and Simon's hair again fell on his shoulders than into the sky like the arms of the sun, always reaching.

Ralph turned slightly to speak to him, they're foreheads brushed when the wind picked up again. "Everyone but you and Roger and the littluns went on a hunt. Only reason you didn't was cos I asked Merridew to leave you behind," he explained. "He wasn't happy about it, and I think you'll have to hunt tomorrow or summat, but it'll be alright."

"I don't want to hunt though," Simon frowned, hair falling into his eyes which he impatiently brushed away. "If we hadn't any choice _but_ to hunt, then I would obviously but we _don't_ have to. We have crab, and fish for meat and plenty of fruit all over the place."

"That's what I said!" Ralph spoke up, eager to find they were both on the same track.

"Besides, this whole thing with leaving the head out for the beast . . ."

"You noticed, did you?" Ralph groaned. "I didn't want Merridew to do it, but he did."

"You know, I don't even think Merridew believes in the beast," Simon said and Ralph froze. Simon noticed his shock and quickly explained, "I mean, we're all scared, right? It's a whole different place and it's awfully black at night, and those creeper things well, they look like snakes and they snag in the dark. But I don't even think Merridew believes there's actually something on this island. It doesn't make any sense for there to be a beast. Nobody's seen it, not even the littluns. Just in dreams."

"Why would he go through all that bother to make people think that there _is _a beast?" Ralph retorted, not understanding Simon's line of reason.

"Well, to control us," Simon said. Ralph stared still. "It'd be different if there weren't other people who could make fire, but there are, so he needs a different way to make sure we all stick together. He wants to keep us all scared so we keep on following him. If there wasn't any fear, and once the fun wears of off hunting cos eventually it _will_ be more like work than play, nobody would listen to him anymore. They don't like him, maybe admire him but they don't like him so he's got to keep them under control somehow."

"But he _does_ think he's seen it! I mean, he thinks he's heard it," Ralph revealed, in hushed tones. Far away birds screamed, falling through the air. Though the sun was up in the sky, and the whole land was cast in some temporary rosiness, the wind rattled the trees behind the boys ominously and they both turned around to they turned back and Ralph continued, "It was us, talking about him, but I couldn't tell him that so he still thinks it was the beast."

"He must know then," Simon concluded, utterly pale. "It makes no sense to hear two boys talking and think it was the beast, so he knows."

"No," Ralph said, suddenly just as concerned. "No way he does." Echoing through the air was the playful chatter of boys, though muffled because of the wind. It was unlikely they had caught anything, perhaps Maurice had found a way to cheer them up a little.

"This isn't good," Simon hissed, hands raking through his thick, wind-wrought hair.

"But there's nothing we can do about it now, except maybe pretend that even though we don't trust him, we'll still listen to him," Ralph decided. It was Simon for once looking confused.

"Won't we?" he asked.

"No," Ralph said. "We can't. Now that he knows, there's no way that we _could_. He'll want to get rid of us somehow, maybe you were right, Simon. About us being on the fire."

"No," Simon said quickly. "It's fine, I was, I was just all – He wouldn't actually do that." His voice was small and steadily gaining in pitch. No matter how savage the boys had become, they wouldn't stand for something like that. They wouldn't kill another one of their tribe, no matter how different or what a threat they were.

"He's really upset now, you know, after the pig got away," Ralph whispered. "We're just taking a break now, but the pig escaped. There were a lot of spears stuck in it, and it was blinded cos of blood but it ran off the cliff and into the water. And now his face is all, made-up, you know? He doesn't even look human anymore!"

"We'll be fine," Simon hissed at last. "We just got to stick together. I think I might have to run away. I can still build us a fire and . . ."

"He's back then is he?" a voice crowed. Merridew and his flurry of tribesmen jumped down onto the rocks with them. "Told you we should've roused him up, not that he wouldn't have been any use."

"Did you catch anything?" Simon asked slyly, successfully taking attention of him and onto their failure. Merridew snarled.

"We'll catch it," he said. "But now there's a much more important thing!" The boys flocked downwards among the rocks so that they could look up to him - a terrible, heroic figure in the sunlight. "Who wants to live at Castle Rock!" They cheered excitedly and though Ralph looked as though he wished to disagree, Simon reached over and squeezed his hand. They didn't have to listen but they had to agree.

"Alright then! It's decided!" Merridew yelled.

"Someone ought to run back and tell the littluns and Roger," said Maurice. "Maybe get a second vote."

"The weirdo can do that," Merridew sneered and everybody snickered. "And sure, we can vote then I guess. Well, go on then!" Tentative as a deer Simon stood up and began walking away. Jeers were thrown after him but Simon shook them off as though they were water. Ralph watched for a moment as Simon disappeared up into the underbrush then he forcefully turned his eyes to the chief. "Get the littluns first so they can head back!" Merridew called after Simon, before turning to the rest of his tribe. "Alright, let's get on."

"Shouldn't we wait for them here?" Ralph asked. "I mean, they don't know the way to the rock and even though Simon could tell them to walk alongside the beach until they got here they still wouldn't know how to get up to the rock. We could hunt or maybe fish while we wait. Plus you said we'd have another vote once they all got here." Merridew glared terribly but the others took to the idea, eager and whooping like savages. They took up arms again and charged into the woods. Merridew leapt after them.

Simon once again found himself threading through the jungle, though this time he was more willing to explore further away from the beach and what the sky held. Inside the thick undergrowth he admired the colour of the sky, also nearly green with trees and the sunlight. Eventually he wandered so deeply he could see no sky at all and he felt peacefully enclosed and contained though he knew logically he had never been at his most wild.

Even inside the forest the wind could reach and tussled his hair and he felt wonderfully familiar memories in it, a caring hand swiping back his hair to so counteract the target it present to his bullies, pulling it as to hold him in place so that he would stop twitching or to perhaps wake him up. No, he could find only tenderness in this wind though he knew logically and somewhere faraway in his mind that wind could pick up trees, people, houses and toss around in the air, flattening them no matter if they were bad people or good people. Mankind could do so many things, he reflected, but they could not predict the movements of the wind. Perhaps that was because there was no meaning to it. Of course there was a purpose, something about currents, but there was clearly no reason for it. So he chose to take the gentleness that the wind gifted him with at that moment, and hold it to himself for as long as it lasted then gladly, willingly relinquish it.

He chose to go to the littluns first, not as much as to obey Merridew's orders, but to spend some time with them. When he arrived back at the beach the littluns had fluttered out of the lagoon, calling his name in a delighted chant. The littluns, when given no stern opinion by someone older, tended to embrace anyone who did not look down on them, figuratively speaking, so they adored Simon, at least when Merridew wasn't around. He knew that if Merridew had been about they would have laughed at Simon but now, at this moment, they latched to him and pulled him half-heartedly struggling into the lagoon.

He decided to swim with them for a while and wash out his shirt from the dirt and soot it had gathered. He participated in breath-holding competitions, always good-naturedly winning against their littler lungs and confident declarations of, 'this time I'll get you!', and they tittered and splashed each other. Simon took one boy on his shoulders though as to give him a piggy-back ride but instead burrowed his way face down in the water so that the boy, giggling uncontrollably with the thrill, could get a ride above everyone's heads and seeing all.

He removed his shirt and attempted to massage the grit out of it. When that didn't work he gave a dive and remarkable splash for their benefit as he fished out a rock with which to beat out the dirt with. They sat on the shore with him watching him clout the shirt with the rock. Some even got their own stones with which to beat the shirt with and after one of the boys had accidently thumped his finger Simon decided the shirt was quite clean enough. He slid it onto his thin frame and swam some more.

After half an hour as free as a fish in such waters he decided to tell them what he had come for. They all watched and listened solemnly for the most part, the other part spent pinching and nudging each other. He pointed to them which direction they were to run to, and told them him and Roger would soon , they armed themselves with sticks and raced off into the jungle though they, as he had instructed them to, always followed the shoreline. Soon as they were ought of his sight, Simon picked himself up out of the water, sopping wet and headed for the column of smoke in the jungle.

He saw Roger sitting by the fire cross-legged like some sort of orient, numbly smiling. Simon was hit with a sense of foreboding as he saw that Merridew's blade was secure on Roger's waist. Then Roger's eyes snapped open and Simon knew, knew that he could not fight and that he could not run. "Hullo Simon."

"Merridew – Merridew, he's –" Simon felt choked again, his heart threatening to clamber up his throat in a quick escape.

"Yeah," said Roger. "I can see why he thinks this is necessary. You're not as dumb as you act." He walked forward, fishing the knife from its sheath and holding it up, glinting in the dim sunlight. He stood right in front of Simon now, only marginally taller and just as skinny and dark-haired. From a distance the two could be brothers. "He's told me to stick you like a pig, and then dump you in the lagoon." Roger's voice was dark and in control and Simon could not bring himself to look past the dark, gloomy eyes which were now lit a sort of excited glow.

"Why?" Simon breathed.

"Because no one will go back to the lagoon after we move to Castle Rock," Roger explained. Simon's legs gave out from beneath him, but so alarmed was he his eyes could not mercifully fall shut for the proceedings. "That and the fact that people would begin to talk and blame it on the beast, of course."The one moment where he'd ever wanted to faint, and he was unable to as Roger stepped closer, standing what seemed like hundreds of feet above Simon.

The power of the knife was inside Roger's hands, the knife seemed to hum and throb, as if it too had a heartbeat. He held it in such a way that it was slitting Simon's stomach, then slicing off Simon's head, and then simply sinking into Simon's chest. He found himself unsatisfied with either of these options, despite the eagerness he felt to rip up skin and send blood squirting into the air like fireworks. Perhaps if he moved closer he would get a clearer vision of what to do.

So Roger sank to his knees, now leaning over Simon. He found gratification in pressing the blade to Simon's hair, then to his cheek. Simon did not whimper or cry, only stared with alert, wide eyes. Roger's hand twinge in pain around the knife and he found himself focusing on other things than the now found himself slightly unnerved by the look in Simon's eyes. It was neither accepting, nor was it rejecting of his fate. It was neither frightened nor blank, not even judging. They just watched Roger's every move. Roger found satisfaction in Simon's quickened breathing and trembling fingers, and the eyes were just there to irritate him, not for much other use.

Just as he was about to bring the knife into Simon's body, he noticed a droplet of blood fall on Simon's shirt. Simon was twisted beneath him now, his neck straining as far away from Roger as he could. Roger looked upwards, then touched his face and when he left blood on his face he knew to look at his palms. The scabs of splinters that had been caused by making fire, the blisters, they had begun to bleed when he held the knife. Disgusted and in pain he wiped his hand on the grass then turned back to his other hand, which had not been irritated so to blood, he tilted Simon's head to look at him again. And suddenly, he saw no point in it all. He stood up and stepped away, though Simon lay shivering on the ground.

"Run away," Roger said, throwing the knife and watching it plant itself into a nearby tree.

"Wh-what?" Simon stuttered.

"But you must let me bring back your shirt," said Roger. "Or he won't believe I've killed you."

"You're – you're letting me go?" Simon asked. It was different when they looked at you, Roger supposed, but not that much. There were the splinters in his hands that had gotten inflamed and began to bleed. Though Roger had often thought of it, of taking a stone and even Merridew's knife and striking the life from someone, just to see if the blank look that the pig's got was universal through the species, it was a different situation.

"My hand hurts," Roger said, holding up the scabby hand. Simon held up his owninjured hands, and they realized that the way they positioned their arms was in mutual surrender. They nearly laughed, but saw no need to. Their eyes were now grave and serious, not delighted or gloomy.

"He'll still make you do the fire,"

"Yeah, well, he can't make me do anything else," Roger said, holding out a hand which Simon took. Simon felt only slight disgust compared to the sudden understanding they both felt as some of Roger's blood stained his arm. They walked gripping each other's arm to the tree where Roger had landed the knife. He tugged out the blade and held a long stare with Simon. Then, like a rattlesnake, he struck.

"Ow!" Simon cried, sinking to the ground again. A slit appeared and grew in length swiftly across his chest, and from it erupting like a volcano, oozed red, hot lava. He brought the blood up to his face and nearly passed out again had not Roger kicked him in the shin to distract him from it. Simon quickly brought up the shirt over his head to inspect the damage.

"No, don't smudge the shirt," Roger warned. "It'll look like I tried to clean your blood _after_ I killed you, wouldn't make a lot of sense, would it?"

"He'd think I was dead even without you cutting me," Simon whimpered, standing up weakly. The cut was not deep or thick, perhaps like a three-inch paper cut in severity, but it bled terribly and it made Simon woozy with his terror. Roger took in the sight, before he abandoned it and beginning to walk away.

"Maybe," he said noncommittally. "And you should take some of the fire with you," he called back, without turning around. Simon shivered with the sudden attack, and he stooped to take a stick of fire, as well as two pieces of wood that he could rub together later. He slid the two sticks in his quickly becoming blood-drenched shorts and he walked over to the tree where he had hidden the candle-buds. Reaching upwards he managed to knock them off the tree and then catch them in his arms. He then dragged himself with the grace of an ape in the furthest direction from Jack Merridew and Roger that he could get. He dropped one candle-bud blossom behind him and he turned back to move a stone on top of it so that it would not blow away.

Jogging lightly it was not long until Roger caught up to the littluns, and then overtook them. He had slid over his body Simon's shirt which was slightly too small for him, but fit well enough. He knew that nobody would notice the blood if they had indeed hunted as Merridew had assured them they would, as well as that their masks would distract them from such a minor detail as a blood-smothered shirt. The littluns only reinforced this thought as they paid no mind to anything but his speed.

Roger had always had the keenest sense of smell a human could have. He had been able to smell food being prepared from his room upstairs from the kitchen with his doors and windows shut. The most shocking scent he had ever smelt had been that of the plane hurtling downwards. Before the plane's capsizing it had smelt like any regular old plain – like stale humans who had sweated on the seats, then of musty dust settling on the seats. Some seats smelled like the alcohol that the grownups helped themselves to and others like orange, apple and cranberry juice. They had been offered neither of these options on their ride and he had decided he would send a complaint to whoever was in charge.

Then the plane broke apart and in came the scent of death. It was cold, and it was harsh. The smell of the seats, and of the humans, lifted away. Death smelt at first sour, and then it became the sweetest thing he had ever smelt and would ever smell afterwards. The fragrance of fear, which he was certain exist, was tingling his nose and it was his own and it was everybody's. He felt as though he was being cradled and rocked by his loving mother and then in the next moment being flung out the window like he was bathwater. He had felt utterly euphoric.

The island contained smells he had never been acquainted with either, and likely never would be had he not been on this particular plane. There was the scent of boy, woody and nutty and more often than not accompanied with a sour twinge, though multiplied and huddled together as in a wolf pack. The scent of brotherhood which even though was an intriguing aroma, he still felt no interest in joining with them and contributing to it.

Then there was the sea – pure salt. And the beach, much like that but with the stench of rotting fish that had gotten trapped at low tide. Then the island itself, the smell was thick and both salty and sweet. Blossoms from trees released the fairest, most delicate fruity fragrance one could ever smell and that mixed with the smell of the sea made the perfume of the entire island. He could live until the day he died merely inhaling and exhaling that wonderful, lulling scent and it was one of the things that he was happy to have experienced through such a tragedy of the plane crash.

There was the smell of filth, which he would have rather gone on without. The littluns after eating too much rotten fruit, that of not washing for days and days, and then that of sickness and waste, the smell of a pig's head on a stick – the aroma always as thick around such a thing as the flies were. That sick, fruity odor of festering wounds, small ones caused by hunting or accidents.

Then that of smoldering flesh, sitting by the fire, he still did not know if he liked these or disliked them. It was not just the fragrance of the cooking pig, which everybody liked, but the little whiffs that always accompanied a resounding 'Ouch!' for that of human skin or hair licked by the fire. It was sour and charred but then, so interesting and inviting. Not that he was interested in setting them on a spit and turning them, no, he was more concerned with seeing if he actually enjoyed the smell, and he was willing to try on as many people as he could as often as he could to be sure of the outcome. He had always been a curious, bored boy.

Then there was that forbidden aroma of blood. It could be salty or sour or sweet. People said it smelt and tasted like copper, Roger thought it smelt like dirt. But he had grown to consider that dirty smell with that of the colour. Red sunsets, birds, hair, dirt. And then, it was creeping up slowly he knew, would come the time where he'd want to flip that whole interpretation in reverse and upside-down. The dirt of the world, make it red. It smelled sweet to him, sweet, sweet dirt.

He smelled disappointment and boredom rising from the ashes of his most precious blood – that earthy tang of pig's blood – from ten meters away. He arrived in the sight of Merridew who asked him where the littluns were, and he replied that they were coming. Merridew looked approvingly at Roger's shirt and Roger slipped him back a bloody knife, only red at the tip but Merridew for the moment either didn't notice or care. Not long afterRoger said that the littluns would come that did the boys burst through the trees with their little sticks that in Roger's eye would have better use as toothpicks.

Merridew, after seeing who was there and who wasn't, walked to the tallest rock and began to speak. It was all formality, Roger knew. If someone disagreed their only choice was to go out into the forest and starve, and judging by the expression on Ralph's face he realized this as well. But Merridew had it dressed in such wonderful words that the boys were all sent cheering back towards Castle Rock being led by Merridew, Ralph and Roger in the had thought that they would walk in silence, seeing as they had never once before conversed, but he had been mistaken.

"Where's Simon?" Ralph asked idly, not too suspiciously. Roger had been right about the blood's visibility amongst the faces of the tribesmen.

"Buggered off," he replied. "He's barmy, that one." Ralph nodded, biting his nails in thought. Nasty habit, Roger thought, as he took in the scent of the green forest and the red blood and the entire island. Ralph did not smell like a fool and they both eyed each other when they thought the other wasn't looking.

The littluns had been as reluctant as ever to cross across such a tall height so Maurice had to take them, running, two at a time under his arms.

Night had soon set on the boys and they had all piled in and huddled up together in the little cave for warmth. Roger had taken no sticks to make a fire with and Merridew was pleased with what he thought Roger had done so he let it slide with the promise they would fetch wood at first light tomorrow morning. Ralph took some solace in knowing he had been right about the cave's bad location, though it was the perfect retort in the fact that he lay on the spot closest to the edge of the cave. Wind chilled him all night until he was sure that everyone was asleep. It was then, dangerously and recklessly, that he began to climb down Castle Rock.

He had seen the blood on the shirt that Roger wore that barely fit, but he had not allowed himself to go further with that line of thought. He remembered detective novels and decided to suspend judgment until he was absolutely sure that Simon was . . . hurt, because there was no point in kicking up afuss where he too could be just as easily . . . hurt. So he waited until the very last pair of eyes had been invaded with dreams.

The moon was not bright that night; the wind had blown in some thin clouds so that the light could only shine through a dark veil like that of a widow's at a funeral. He gripped the rock, moving his way down purposefully. The rock was now a dark gray and he could hardly see it apart from the light glow that the moon had cast on it. He was about half-way down when a rock appeared that nearly caused him to trip and fall into the water below. Now positively clinging to the castle he inched his way down with trembling limbs.

He crossed the bridge with eagerness in the dim light, almost bouncing as he raced away, and through the tall grass that he supposed would be the very last time to walk through. He used his ears to guide him more than his eyes for in the darkness there was not a lot to see, but plenty to hear with the gentle roar and chuckle of the sea. He walked as a blind person would; having stolen a spear he knocked around every which way to see if he was heading in a safe was remarkably still that night on the ground so he didn't get scared by moving branches as there were none.

He groped his way out of the jungle and found himself on the rocks that Merridew had called the vote on earlier. He hung closer to the trees this time, gripping them whenever he came in contact with them and swinging himself forward in boyish playfulness. The palms' trunks were slick, though ridged and only few were furry so that sense was used often and well that black night. Even in the darkness there was the scent of flowers rising in the air, which reminded him of the cave on the other side of the mountain. If he couldn't find Simon, he'd hide there he decided, and try to make fire of his own. Merridew was getting too dangerous even if Ralph obeyed his every word.

There was a temporary break in the clouds as he began walking on a beach, and all of its sands and little crystals shone silver in the light. The little droplets of water that had been scattered on the sand from waves charging at the rocks made Ralph feel as though he was walking on diamonds. Water reached passed the jagged rocks and curled around his feet, sucking them up and trying to drag him into the sea. He felt delighted but still, this feeling of solitude was nothing to the solitude shared with a friend. Still he had half a mind to jump into the sea and just keeping swimming as far away from this beautiful, terrible island. To be fair, it wasn't that the island was terrible, it was its inhabitants. The world is beautiful, the people are ugly.

At last he found himself clambering over the platform from the first day and he knew he was extremely close to the lagoon. And at last he was, and he walked up to his knees in it. It was warmer than his blood, even in the night, and the still waters skirted alongside his legs. He twirled one foot inside of it, just to feel the water rushing through his toes. The salt stung his not completely healed wound on his leg but he ignored it, just as one had to ignore most things to fully enjoy anything.

He strolled out of the water and into camp. The moonlight had begun to shine brighter as the wind had suddenly started to pick up. He wandered into the familiar trees and he saw the abandoned fire pit, and a few pairs of shirts scattered across the scene white like dead bodies in the dimness. Worry was beginning to mount as he span around, searching desperately for a sign of Simon. Suddenly a gust of wind twitched the green candle-bud which Ralph saw was placed on purpose beneath a rock. Simon was okay, the thought sent relief coursing through Ralph's entire bloody as though it had replaced his blood.

He picked up the bud and walked a little further and he saw that there was, against the splashes of white sand that had found themselves all the way into camp, was a single droplet of burgundy which Ralph knew would look terribly red if it was daytime. Simon was living, but he _wasn't_ okay. Ralph, dropping his spear and following the shoreline, ran off into the night.


	5. Chapter 5

CHAPTER FIVE

"I don't think a candle-bud ever burnt this long," Simon whispered in a low voice, staring at the green, glowing flower as if it were a real candle flame and he was a he spoke his words flickered the blaze making the shadows causedby his nose and smile dance merrily. A small fire crackled a yard away from them but Simon had decided to light the last candle-bud anyway. It had been lit for nearly half an hour, and Simon lay on his stomach facing away from the fire so that he could look at it. He lay sprawled across Ralph's legs and against Ralph's stomach so the wound Roger gave him never touched the elbows did, however, as he fiddled with and stared into his candle-bud and Ralph could see the line of green haloing around the loose strands of hairs at the top of his hair.

They had found each other on this beach which was, as far as they could tell, directly diagonal from Castle Rock and was closer to the flower-scented cave then Ralph had thought it would be. When they reunited, Simon had quickly clambered to his feet from his position at the fire he had made and Ralph had begun sprinting. They clung to each other like they had not seen one another in years. Neither saw any reason in blubbering like littluns would've but still hours afterwards, with no sleep, they still kept physical contact as though if they ceased to touch one another in some way the other would disappear into the darkness. As if they were only embracing a mirage or a temporarily tangible ghost that would vanish with the cock's crow.

Still holding one another tightly, they had slumped next to a tree close to the fire and remained there for years, the fire crackling and they spoke gently to one another for a while, relaying what events had led them to this place. They had soon lapsed into a familiar silence once more, and Simon fished out of his short pockets a half-squashed candle-bud and held it near the fire with an air of contemplation. Ralph dug around in the area behind the tree that they'd fallen against and searching through some soil and stone he found a small stick. He caught it on fire and with Simon holding the candle-bud they managed to light it. There hadn't been a significant difference in colour, so taking Ralph's hand Simon had tugged them a little bit further from the fire, but not too far that they couldn't reap its benefits.

The air had grown considerably colder and clearer as the night had progressed, the clouds had been completely blown aside revealing the millions of holes in the sky, that seemed to flutter like frozen fireflies in the night. Further away from the fire with cooler faces they could observe them better and Simon had temporarily laid down his bud to simply stare at them. The sound of the water's gently roaring and crashing waves rang musically in the night. They had decided to sleep until first light, but so far that had not happened and didn't seem likely to. They could see with their own eyes the moon move over the water, appear over the trees and slowly begin to glide down again. They would patiently wait for it.

The trees whispered amongst themselves as ominous as ever but Ralph and Simon had no inclination to be afraid anymore. They were tired of it, and weren't in the mood. And there were far more scary things than bogey-men and beasts that lurked in the could be safe, and never know the feeling of safety and then one could be in danger, and feel absolutely at home and secure. A night such as this could drive a person mad, but with a fire lit and a candle-bud held to the sky as if it were a torch to champion the stars, they could do nothing but love the island that had only bred ways to kill them.

On the surface of the black water there laid scattered lights, like rice on the ground after a wedding, which dipped and swayed and stretched with the undulations of the ocean. In the distance the wall of coral emerged from the ocean, in the night it was no longer pink but had instead faded to a light phosphorescent green that was only minutely as bright as the stars above from which had gained its power. In such a night where the moon had been shielded by thin dark clouds, her influence could still be seen in the form of such the glowing creatures that flocked along the coral. A halo of the inquisitive beings had traced the outline of a distant shape that was unknown but as full of possibilities as that of a cloud. They surrounded it, as though they were little stars themselves, and attached themselves to it and allowed themselves be dragged along as it was gently rocked out to open sea.

Ralph was once again struck with the feeling of infinity, the border that was between his world and this world but this night he had refused to be scared of it after all. Simon lazily drew pictures in the sand with his finger and then would smother them with a quick hand so the white, dry sand would fall back into place as if nothing had happened at all. Ralph had noticed some fierceness in Simon's eyes that hadn't been present before, but his expression was as gentle and kind as it had ever been. Ralph didn't know how much he had changed during the course of his life on the island, but Simon _had_ for what Ralph had to believe hadbeen for the better. The harm that Roger had caused him was to help, despite his obvious enjoyment of it, and it shouldn't have changed Simon at all. But here Simon was, drinking in the world with a sort of intoxicated delight and amazement with a smile Ralph wouldn't have believed could possibly be caused justby existing.

At long last, Simon sat up slightly but still found ways of not parting from Ralph's skin. Their arms still touched, their legs coiled together and they both knew within a place in their minds that they had set aside; that they probably looked like fairies but any such insult no longer mattered. It was like making sure you were wearing matching socks in wartime. Nothing mattered but what little they could see in the darkness and how lovely it was, and the much needed contact of another living person, someone that wouldn't laugh or try to hurt you. They found solace and a place to heal together, with their spear and fire and lust to live.

The skin of Simon's chest was bathed in orange from the firelight and green with the candle-bud's glow but his wound stretched a deep reddish-brown across his chest as if it was a battle trench. Simon had washed it out well and it wasn't too deep at all despite Roger's untrained hand so it would heal alright but it still looked fairly shocking in the darkness where it was nearly the same value so it looked as though Simon had a hole straight through his chest. Ralph secretly thought it might form a scar. Simon noticed Ralph looking at it and he smiled eyes were bright and flickered with a billion luminosities and Ralph could practically see Simon thinking, but not what. "Why are you so quiet Simon?" Ralph asked not for the first or final time.

Simon sighed and looked back at the stars. He pressed his candle-bud to his chest as if it was a heart outside his body. "Well, I want what everybody wants and what I never really had. I want acceptance. What else is there for me?" he laughed sadly, then turned his eyes back to Ralph."And seeing you, also not wanting anything too much but to be a little bit happy, I think I _knew_ you'd accept me. Though maybe you'd laugh a little, maybe ignore me when I do something stupid like say something wrong or – or walk into a tree, but you didn't. You accepted me, so I trust you, I guess."

"Could've just as easily hardly known you," Ralph argued. "I could've been just as mean as anyone to you."

"Well I don't want to think of 'could have's just now," Simon said and they relapsed into a had both decided what they didn't want to think of that night so Ralph wouldn't pursue it. Clouds pooled around the moon as if embracing it one last time before leaving. Now the boys were splattered with colours Merridew would have envied – white, orange, green and black. The candle-bud was still glowing strongly.

"Seeing Roger with your shirt, I didn't know what I would do," Ralph broke the silence in a quiet confession. "After all you told me I knew you'd never take off your shirt."

"The shirt's a mask," Simon shrugged. "To pull off the shirt," he mused. "Is to give up on the whole pretense. Us, with our bloody shirts, we're still just pretending to be good."

"No, Simon," Ralph said fiercely. "You're still good."

"I know," Simon smiled and then Ralph laughed. "But wearing a shirt, it doesn't make a difference. Just like Merridew, Jack, painting up his face. Doesn't change who he is. It's our actions, not our looks that make us good or bad. It's _stupid_ for anyone to think otherwise. We all can do anything, but there's no point in trying to tell the world we can, especially when it's just something like this." He plucked at Ralph's shirt.

"But I want to remember," Ralph said. "In case we never get back, I want to remember the feeling of my shirt."

"There's no laundry detergent on the island," Simon reminded him and they laughed. "Besides, there are only two things we can do. Get rescued, or get killed. Trying to get ourselves rescued will probably get us killed. And the only way I see of us getting away is –" Simon pointed out to the moon-beam bodied creatures that flocked the distant unknown shape that was already a dot in the distance. They watched in solemnity as it bobbed almost past the horizon and then Ralph turned to Simon again

"What about joining his tribe?" He phrased the question tentatively, knowing that it was something they'd loath to consider but it was another option. Simon's face flushed with anger.

"What about what you said about the fire and how it was the most important thing?" Simon yelled, growing upset. It was never that Simon had looked at Ralph as the type that wanted to lead, but he was the kind that needed to lead. It was a slap in the face that Ralph would give out so easily, before even trying. "You said we ought to die before we let the fire out!"

"Well maybe if we joined with them again they'd let us keep making the fire," Ralph said, trying to placate his friend. It appeared to be the only option that wouldn't end in death by Simon's own definition.

"No," Simon said firmly, clearlyoffended for Ralph even considering the idea. "That's what we were doing. And Merridew told Roger to kill me and you know he almost_ did_." Ralph knew he had stepped over some sort of boundary as Simon's lips pressed together in a sort of stubbornness to no longer to speak. The light in his eyes burned brighter than ever but his skin had turned a lighter shade.

"I'm sorry," Ralph said earnestly.

"Fire's going out," Simon mumbled, only sparing a glance at the fire. He rubbed the area between nose and mouth with agitation, clearly not entirely softened by Ralph's words. The boys glanced at each other and saw that neither of them wanted to get up and seek out fire. Despite Simon's anger he did not wish to part skins with Ralph and Ralph knew to feel flattered by it and that the argument could quickly be scrapped. Ralph pulled off his shirt and tossed it on the flames which greedily ate it up, sparking the flames temporarily pink in colour. Simon's lips softened and his expression became less severe as they both stared into the fire.

"You know, if Merridew tried to kill you again I'd kill him?" spoke Ralph, the words were brave but somehow rang true. Simon looked out the corner of his eye and the tension in his body relaxed but he still wouldn't look at Ralph.

"You shouldn't though," he said. "You shouldn't –"

"Touch someone else's life? Even when he's trying to take away my friend's? Besides, you said – anything I could live with. I could live with his blood on my hands." The more Ralph thought of it, the more he was sure. If Merridew thought that killing someone like _Simon_ was acceptable he was no longer human in Ralph's views.

"Could you really?" Simon asked, more horribly curious than skeptical. Ralph pictured the scene quickly. Merridew and his knife, going for someone's throat as he had many times before.

"I don't know," Ralph said. To obliterate someone like Merridew to save someone like Simon, it was pretty clear-cut morally but he couldn't raise a spear and kill someone else as he had tried with a pig, at least not in his mind's eye. "I'd probably hurt him just fine but . . . I don't know. I'm then . . . if it came to life and death. I'm sorry, I don't know."

"Don't be sorry," Simon said, taking Ralph's hand and squeezing it before letting it fall to the powdery sand again. "I don't think I'd kill for you, either. I've never even . . . hunted. Even if I wanted to, I don't think I'd be able to." The light of the candle-bud suddenly fizzled out to their dismay. Frowning, Simon tossed it into the sea and curled his hands in his lap. The bud, still green and glowing, fluttered through the air and was carried with the wind past white sands and pink shells on the shoreline until finally landing on the water. With the sudden introduction of added darkness their will to stay awake decreased.

"Thought you said we'd have to decide what we'd do before we did it," Ralph said, the wish for sleep that had lay dormant for the most part had started to wander around in his veins and wrapped itself around his brain.

"No, I said different people decide on different things but yeah, that's what –" Simon broke off in a huge yawn. "- What I meant. But we can decide all we want, doesn't mean we'll do it, just gives us more of a chance. I don't want to be the kind of person that hurts another person, so I've decided to rather die than hurt someone else."

"Really?" Ralph's voice was both surprised and sleepy. "You'd die?"

"Well, what's the point of living when you're not someone you'd want to live as?" Simon asked. "Well . . . I reckon its nearly coming to light now. Always darkest before the dawn and all that.I guess we could catch a few hours' sleep before the fire'll go out." He could see that the light in the candle-bud in his fingers was flickering steadily out, and he put it out in the sand before it was able to quit on them.

"Right," Ralph agreed, bringing their heads together against the tree and it wasn't long before they had wandered into the land of dreams of sweet, sweet memories. Lips murmured in deep sleep, thanking whatever luck that might exist in the night that had allowed them to escape for however short time they had. The boys steadily merged into one silhouetted shadow on the ground, but throughout the night the fire never once lost its spirit. That night the starry sky looked down through the gently rustling trees upon their slumbers, and the distant roaring of the surf upon the coral reef was their they could have ended their story there, they would have but morning would come soon enough, bringing with it harsh sunlight.

The smell of snow had always been quite distinct, even for someone who hadn't as developed senses as Roger. It was some sort of sharp smell, almost ashy and it felt uncomfortable invading your nostrils. Most noticeably of all, it smelled cold to the point that it nearly burned as if someone was on the verge of preforming a nasal lobotomy with an icicle. Though it had not snowed, Roger was sure it was definitely cold enough to and it was the smell of snow he had awoken to, that and Merridew's shivering orders to get the fire started.

"What?" he groaned grouchily and flipped over trying to evade the cold and Merridew, in pleasant red dreams. A cold gust of wind blew in at that moment and Merridew looked as though he wished to throttle Roger. The sky was a patch of light gray that was slowly but steadily crawling away from the island and Roger unconsciously and sleepily rubbed at his arms to create some type of friction to warm himself.

"Start the fire!" Merridew roared and Roger turned around but only to scowl. Ralph had been much wiser then they to say that it would be cold in the cave and seeing that he knew he should've listened to Ralph at that moment and so Roger saw no reason to listen to Merridew at this one.

"Get me sticks then," he shot back and Merridew snarled. Littluns were stirring at the conflict, most of the boys were already up and were resting against the cold, scraggly walls watching the scene with interest.

"I told you, it's your job you're the fire maker, you ought to get your own sticks, should have got them last night like I brought up the clay and when we all brought up spears!" Merridew ranted but Roger only raised his eyebrows. He felt no inclination to rub his hands raw that morning at all, much less under Merridew's barked orders. He quietly considered to himself how much joy he would get from running Merridew off out of the cave and send him hurtling into the sea below, and it probably showed on his face. Merridew's expression became guarded in response and he then turned to a few of the littler boys. "Go on then! You heard what he said!" It was Robert, ever trying to earn approval, and a littlun called Wilfred that were sent to scramble down Castle Rock and fetch the fire maker's tools.

Roger chewed on his upper lip and stared at Merridew's imposing figure at the center of the cave. Merridew's face was blank from any paint but his appearance was no less wild and furious then it would be if he were. Roger, however, had always been endowed with the ability to see who it was who had the upper hand in situations, and it more often than not turned out to be him though he skirted around such matters, teased himself. "Can I sleep now?" he asked, obviously in no mood for any such mind games with himself, or the answer 'no' from Merridew. Merridew wasn't blessed with the gift of obvious that Roger was.

"No, you can't!" he yelled furiously. "Not until we're all warm and we've all eaten!"

"Why don't you go _hunt_ then?" Roger sneered. "That should warm you lot up and give me time to make the fire maybe."

"Yeah, let's," agreed Maurice, thin and tall and shivering with the worst of them. Quite a few littluns had cuddled up next to him as if they were the pups in a wolf pack and he was one of the more empathic member, and quite likely the only one left.

"No," Merridew hissed. "I'm chief and we'll do what I say!" All the boys were too tired to argue with him and a few even threw up their hands in mock surrender. Merridew wheeled around and walked to the very edge of the cave but rather than looking, he closed his eyes. He also hadn't had enough sleep the previous night, howling winds had kept all of them up and his eyelids burned.

"He's upset because Ralph's run off," a littlun whispered to Roger. Though Roger found the boy disgusting and dirty he was interested in the information and he tilted his head slightly as though to egg the littlun on. The boy, encouraged by the attention, spoke only slightly louder so that the other ones could hear, "Yeah! I reckon the weird one, Simon, drove him screwy too! Or maybe it was the beast . . . Maybe the beast got both of 'em!" Roger quickly learned not to pay attention to littluns, but the littluns were far from comprehending such a lesson and their queries and utterances of wonder peaked abruptly in volume.

Merridew hissed them quiet and they allceased to speak, obediently waiting in silence for lack of anything better to do. They sat still as if they were meditating until, breathing loudly and lightly sweating, Robert and Wilfredcharged into the cave baring twigs. Boys leapt to their feet and began to chatter excitedly as Merridew himself took the sticks from Robert's hands and handed them to Roger.

Roger put on a face of weariness and he sighed as he inspected. "They're both the wrong size, and it's not even the kind of wood that can light," he said improvising half-heartedly in a way that could make anyone believe he was an expert on the subject.

"Well that's all we found!" cried Wilfred. "Honest, we tried!" His childishly chubby cheeks flushed indignantly at the accusatory stares he was getting. His pudgy fists rested on his hips and he looked properly insulted with obvious British blood.

"There's just not much trees growing around here," Robert spoke quieter though it was him that Merridew rounded on not the pouting littlun.

"What do you mean no trees? There are trees everywhere!" Spittle flew out of Merridew's mouth but and onto Robert's face but he was too frightened to flinch. Merridew turned to Roger and ripped the sticks violently from his hands, glaring accusingly before throwing them off of the cliff as if he were an American pitcher. He walked straight up to Robert until his white, freckled nose nearly touched Robert's perspiring forehead.

"No trees with branches we could break off, 'cept for the tree we got those from," hemanaged to croak, his eyes dizzy with fear. Merridew reddened with anger.

"Get me the clay," he orderedwith a deep, grave and commanding voice. Bill quickly went to fetch the supplies that they had settled on top of the islandwhile Merridew had struck Robert and Wilfred with such a look that neither of them felt the power to move. His power had extended its reach like octopi limbs, wrapping around ever boy in the cave and forbidding them to speak either. But any chance they could have had was completely obliterated when Bill had come down bringing the clay.

"I don't see what the problem is," Roger spoke up. Though he didn't really care about the boys, he hadn't been expecting such a reaction for failure to fetch firewood. " I probably couldn't do it again, I only did it the once and I don't know how I managed to," he lied, but Merridew ignored his words and then Roger saw he really saw no advantage in trying to cover for the boys. Even though the trouble with the fire had started with Roger, Roger hadn't been unsuccessful at anything, he rather had refused, while they had indeed failed at their duty and thus deserved whatever punishment they got so Roger backed Merridew all the way . . . as long as Roger got a hand in it.

With a surgeon's precision, Merridew lifted the clay to his skin and began to remold it. The red and white clay thatched over any skin that might have peaked through and declared him human, and the slash of charcoal dividing the warring regions of red and was a beat of silence, though the gulls continued to caw and the sea to roar and at last Merridew looked up, grinning horribly. "Why don't we all go down there and see the trees for ourselves?" Nobody dared utter a word in argument.

They inched down the mountain side, grumbling and tired and marched across the bridge, already used to its heights. Even the littluns had woken up and sat down cross-legged, like they had been taught to by their nursery teachers, on the dirt to watch fidgeting with sharp blades of grass. Down on leveled ground once more Robert felt braver, pacing around and waving his arms to illustrate his point. "See, there ain'tno trees but those ones. Only good trees for lighting are back down at the beach and –"

"Tie 'em up,"Merridew ordered fiercely.

Robert snapped, "Oh, I say!" in proud British fashion. But the boys united under something other than country now, something other than flags and the fifth of November among other national holidays. Something darker and crueler and redder, the blood that the boys contained was something much more seductive than whatever patriotic show of spirit they could put on.

" –Honestly!" whimpered Wilfred, his plump, pink jowls vibrating with his protest .Some boys yanked a vine off of a tree and within minutes Robert and Wilfred were inexpertly tied together on the ground, writhing and attempting to struggle out of their binds though it was obviously futile. With similar size and colour the boys looked as though they were Siamese twins, a chilling vision that was only reinforced by their identical expressions of terror and disbelief.

"Stand 'em up," Merridew hissed, and watched through hooded eyes with pleasure as they were. Two boys held their arms tight at either side and watched in dutiful apprehension as Merridew's hand fell to his sheath. There was a low ring in the air as he drew his silver, blood-stained blade out and held in the air. "I gave you two a very simple job. And I am chief, so you should have done it! And I been fair. Haven't I been fair?"

Boys circled all around couldn't help but agree with him. "I gave you weapons, and hunting and fire. All I ask in return is that you _listen_ to me when I talk, and _do_ something when I _tell_ you to do it! Well now you'll all know what happens when you disobey direct orders from your chief!" He turned to the rest of his boys. "Now, here is my order to you all." They waited with bated breath. "Do the dance." And he turned and made his first move.

All of the boys watched on as blood began to splatter on the trees around them, for they could see the justification in it all. They looked like red berries sailing through the air and as first droplet of red began to obey the laws of gravity instead of Merridew, the first boy, it was the littlun, began to sing as Wilfred began to scream. When one began the rest fell behind, louder and more united than ever together. They rallied around in a circle they had grown to know and use many times in their childhood games and they all began to dance.

"_Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!"_

It had been put in simple terms, obey the chief and all will be good for the chief surely knew what was right. But disobey the chief and you had outlived your purpose. The sight of blood had warmed all of their faces and they were eager and hungry for more and more. They screamed the chanted words as loud as they could as if they could summon earthquakes or floods or some ancient, devilish magic. They screamed.

"_Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!"_ And for once it was the chief obeying the orders of his people. No one could hear the pained noises scrambling out from the boys' throats as he carved them up and served them. His savages merely watched enthralled as thick purple rivers dribbled out of their bodies, as if they were seeing fire for the first time. This scent of blood and fear and intoxication smelled sweeter than any perfume of any flower in the entire world Roger felt sick with want because of it.

"May I?" he asked stepping forward as he was suddenly eager to finish the boy off, feel how hot the blood was on his hands. He had felt nothing with Simon, spilt hardly any at all compared to the puddles of darkness that lay on the ground and reflected the glowing sky.

"No," Merridew growled, looking up from his undertaking for once. He was still carrying the anger of what he felt was Roger's betrayal of not lighting the fire. And with that anger, he lifted his knife once more and let his arm fly. Red berries were scattered in the air and the colour of Robert's eyes as they rolled back in his head was that of snow. The boys that were holding the traitors let them fall with a tremendous crash. The littlun was crushed under the dead one and he was sniveling terribly, his voice as irritating as that of a squealing pig that could not accept defeat. Merridew dropped to his knees and flipped the merged body over.

"_Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood! Do him in!"_The smaller one's whimpering throat was suddenly exposed for all to see with a single flash of silver, and it slowly ceased in its function like a windup toy would and at last it stopped completely. With that, so did the chants. The boys were no longer quite as captivated by the blood as they had been, but they didn't know what to do. They glanced around at each other, trying to find the answer in each other's eyes. Roger summed it up for them, his voice resentful and exhausted.

"I don't want to play anymore," he hissed, and before anyone could mutter a word of argument, he walked off into the thick shrubbery and disappeared. It was as if the boys had woken up truly for the first time that morning, one of the littluns even went as so far to rub his eyes and look in horror at what Merridew had different reasons than Roger, though with the same conviction and strength in feeling they wanted to leave. Still again everyone hovered on one side of the trench drawn in the sand.

"Neither do we," it was Samneric that at last spoke up with sudden bravery, though it was still fear inspired. And with those words they broke away running, not trusting the path that Roger was taking they followed only path that they knew, the shoreline. As if one leak had sprung in the dam, so did the dam break and all the boys scattered through the trees.

"Stop!" Merridew yelled. "I am your chief! I command you to – Listen to me!" But not a single one would for they knew the extents of the power he held but they no longer wanted to be controlled by it. Seeing this, Merridew desperately ran. The tall grass sliced up his legs and rocks fell off the bridge has he crossed it, he never moved as fast as he did when inching his way up to the very top of Castle Rock, but it was too late. They could not hear him from the distance and they would not turn to see him.

Enraged he screamed and his cries echoed through the jungle as if it was a bird cry, a wounded bird. His eyescollapsed on one of the larger rocks that fringed Castle Rock's highest level and he set to pushing it, trying to make it fall onto the grass below and crush the life out of anything that was still left to destroy. When his muscles gave and he was forced to see that he couldn't do it on his own he screamed again, bashing his fists against the rock. "Damn you," he muttered and he smudged his mask when he wiped away his angry tears. He glared at the jungle, as if daring it to respond, and then it did.

From here he could see the path that Roger was taken, up to the mountains. He could see the tribe that had abandoned him, crawling like ants across the beaches. He could see that both ways were the long ways from the pillar of smoke he could see rise up out of the jungle. Smoke signals, like in Westerns, rising up from the untamed wilderness. He rested his palms reassuringly against the pink, granite rock and smiled. Then he began to run with all the passion that he, and they, contained.

Harsh breaths filled their lungs and it felt as though furious bees were making their ways down the boys' throats, stinging their lungs and making them grow larger to host more and more. Bill was half-certain that if he took in anymore air his feet would fall off the ground and he would float away, and perhaps it was this that kept him running. Down on the beach below the littluns were trailing behind as the biguns raced ahead at full speed. "I bet you wished you could go home now," he said to Maurice as they ran.

Maurice's blond hair was plastered to his forehead as he sweated in exertion. They had been running for nearly ten minutes now with no break. Their lungs and feet ached but with fear as their fuel they charged onwards."We had better stop for the littluns," Maurice replied, his voice choked as he looked backwards. The littluns they had raced ahead of were even smaller than the size that they'd started out with from the biguns point of view, and some of them he couldn't see at all for the trees and ferns. "He killed a littlun after all." They had all silently, unanimously decided to put all of the blame on their past leader. It had seemed like a good idea at the time and all that.

"Sucks to the littluns!" Bill hissed. "They can't keep up with us, that's their own problem!" He was feeling in a particularly vindictive mood that morning having hardly slept in the cold night, eaten nothing all morning despite the capital idea of going to hunt and having seen things that would probably have caused him to expel any food in his belly if he had indeed acquired any.

"We gotta stick together!" Maurice explained, his body and mind warring to compromise into a jog instead of a sprint. He fell silent then let out a horrified moan. "Oh cripes, we got no spears!" Horror burrowed itself deep into their hearts. They had all foolishly dropped their weapons when they had begun to flee. The twins fell behind in their pace and began to run in time with Bill and the quickly pursuing Maurice.

"We gotta – we gotta – " one of them wheezed, clutching his chest

"We gotta find Ralph," concluded his brother, not looking much healthier in the situation.

"But he's gone barmy!" rasped the littlun with the mulberry-coloured birthmark which was now barely discernible in value against the furiously flush of his reddening cheeks. He had managed to catch up, happily leaving behind his peers. Survival of the fittest and all that.

"And Merridew hasn't?" Bill posed the question and for one very long moment they all wished to drop to all fours and cry in despair. In split seconds they could see the ease of which they could surrender but with something engrained in them quite as deeply as the urge to be greedy and to seek power was the urge to go on. It lit their hearts only a slightly brighter shade of yellow, but the show must go on and all that, so they continued to run.

At that very moment, Merridew felt anything but barmy. In fact, he had never felt more in control. In his chest he was a cheetah running across the desert, bound at a time, and purring in pleasure. He stalked through the jungle wearing nothing but his war paint and armed with his knife, spear and fists. Branches whipped against his face as he breezed past them, scratching like claws but nothing would detain was harsh against him as he raced through the thinner parts of the jungle, it aided him by pushing his heavy red hair back but it blew strongly against branches causing smack and scrapeagainst his laughed, tossing his head into the sun as if he was a feral cat.

Everything was so set in front of him so remarkably simple; the very trees seemed to be arranged in foreboding order such as a labyrinth but one with such an easy path. It was like flowing the superstition of the rainbow, and running to the pot of gold except here he was certain it wasn't an illusion. The pillar of smoke was something tangible that he could touch and smell and taste and destroy. And the pot of gold was something he could affect in just the same way.

He knew where his tribe was runningto; they thought they could get better leadership under someone who would make them work constantly. Shelters,fire, they needed none of that. He had found them a perfect place, but they refused to stay put. They would tire of Ralph too, Merridew knew, but he could not afford to wait. He never could, but he could manage to take a quick pause, for he was nearly half-way through the island to the end of his venture.

He shifted the spear in his hands so that he gripped it between his thighs, and taking his knife he began to sharpen it on the other end. He had grabbed the first spear he had seen and had charged forth with not a moment to lose. But now he could see from the point that he was on at the island that he had travelled further then both his tribe and Roger. He turned around the spear and began sharpen the first end again. He had plans for it for his spear. He began to jog again, leisurely and with relish.

He knew that whatever they were seeking they would not find in Ralph. He would probably make it so that they never hunted at all, and Merridew laughed at the thought. He knew his people, they could not live on fruit and fish alone. A world without blood, he knew, would not be a world they could bare to live in and certainly not one he could allow to come into being. He would show them how they had already fallen in love with a world ofred, and none of Ralph's words would ever bring back that dewy pinkness to the rocks the island was built on. For it had been their island, but now it was Merridew's.

He had bitten his tongue in his suddenly quickened pace, and the blood spilled in his mouth and served to wet his appetite. As he ran his knife rose with the motion, and then his spear, then his knife again and his sick smile widened like a gapingwound across his had gotten his first taste of them when they had taken the sticks littering the jungle floor and turned them into weapons. Their first kill was just a bit further in the jungle from the fire so his people hadn't learned too much about the weaving paths. Roger had wise foresight in that matter.

He could not recall if their first kill was male or female but he knew it was him that had driven his blade into its neck successfully taking away its life after several failed attempts from most of the biguns and even a few of the littluns. It was on his hands that the blood had spilt on, dyeing his skin crimson as if he was a new breed of human. But most of all he remembered the looks in their eyes, glazed and wanting. He had thrown his head back and laughed, ripping the knife from the throat of the creature beneath him. Geysers of blood had shot out of its neck, splattering over the crowd's clothes. People, who had only been wearing clothes because of the pain that sunburn had brought them, stripped down to their boxers and some to nothing at all and they had all laughed.

He knew the look, that look of power that one got when they thought they had any, even if it was only over a distraction, over hunting. He knew that look because the look he gave them now was the look that teacher's had given him, policemen after he'd informed them of the identities of the vandals that had drawn – in a previous life. There was no gratefulness, just theacknowledgement that there was someone else following the system and that it was a good thing. He had not seen through the look until now, and he didn't think anybody else would until they fell into such a situation, except perhaps Simon.

Simon had been a quiet one, quiet was not good. Roger was quiet, and he had been thinking in the silence while he should have been following orders. But then, Roger also knew such power – he had seen it in the eyes, as most things could be found. Roger had been holding some sort of small stone in his fist, and he managed to hit a littlun with it. But Simon, the swoony little wimp, had either never been placed in such or had never pursued such an intoxicating feeling. Merridew was sure he _had_ felt it, that it was always there lurking and waiting to come to life.

And yet Simon could recognize what Merridew felt, thinking was very dangerous. When he was back in power he avowed that they would hunt all day and dance all evening and sleep all through the night. Tending the fire didn't really matter, all they needed to do was start it somehow and if worse came to worst they could just relight it after their hunts. Of course, thoughts of the beast had to be rekindled just as often. It wasn't hard to believe that there was a beast of some sort, anything from a monster-sized pig that they had yet to see to a creature bubbling up from the murkiest depths of the sea. He was sure that someone quiet would have their own theories, which was why exactly he had it taken care of.

But he never expected that Roger would turn as well. Simon had been the root of the problem but he had only nipped it in the bud and it continued to grow. They were running to Ralph now, the inheritor of questions and someone who could actually command his people. Merridew knew for certain that Roger would either avoid him or fall back in line, he was not a leader so all he had to do was remove Ralph. And he'd need to do that with his own hands, not by an order to someone disloyal.

Merridew had been book smart, he'd gotten top grades at school he knew well enough to address teachers and wan't scared to tell his peers what they needed to do and how far he good go or so he thought. He had thought he knew people, but now surrounded with savagery he had only begun to learn and was still making mistakes. It had been nature not man that had taught him the nature of man, and he reflected on one fateful hunt with the boar and his family. The boar's need to protect himself instead of his offspring and their mother, it had shown him all he ever needed to know about human beings. There was that power that he knew that he and the boar shared, they were both kings of their own domain. But while the boar surrendered that feeling of power for his worthless life, Merridew would not.

The boar and he had both lived a peaceful life prior to the plane's crash. They had each held power but never did they have to defend it. But when they were both faced with the choice, the pig did not and he did and that boar had ended up dead. Now the same challenge was put between he and Ralph and though he knew Ralph was not dumb, and was perhaps stronger, he knew he wouldn't be able to kill. The spark in his eyes when he helped bring down a boar, that power was nothing but a substitute for the real thing, and Ralph did not desire the real thing. Merridew secured the outcome, and he broke through the woods . . .his blue eyes fell to another pair and they both looked at each other. And suddenly he saw red.

The blanket of gray had finally been thrown off the island that Roger now stood at the very pinnacle of. Granted, it wasn't the very top but it granted him one of the grandest views of the island. On one side of the island, Roger's left was the hundred foot tall Castle Rock. He squinted but he could not see Merridew on it, and he supposed that he had ran off into the woods chasing childishly after his rebelled tribe.

To his right he could see the smoke, reaching approximately as high as Castle Rock's tallest point, wafting through the trees. The sun was not completely uncovered from the clouds just yet and it had turned a pleasant pink through the thick, silver filter. As a result the trees had become tainted pink, the green flowers turned brown . . . he inhaled, taking in the smells and sights of the island and deciding he would never leave it, not if he could help it.

And a part of the sight the island held, he noticed, was a ship - only a small white fleck on the horizon – but surely something Simon would be interested in. He decided to walk down to them, be the bearer of good news and to let them know to never let the fire out. And to tell them not to search for him, tell the captain of the ship that everybody was there.

He came down the mountain, his legs buckling as his bones shifted under his weight. He passed one gigantic stone like the one he had helped to push down on his first adventure on the island, but this time he did not shaving him a considerable amount of time as he crossed into the forest almost immediately. Vines crossed over his head like bridges across the sky, birds chittered and sang catchy but repetitive numbers that impressed no one, ferns were thick and green and fallen logs seem to spring up from the ground so Roger needed to leap over quite a few. Steadily the shrubbery grew more entangled and as soon as it looked like the jungle was impervious Roger knew to take a detour.

It was the half-cave of their first adventure, dark as the erosion where they slept in at Castle Rock but lit with flowers instead of primitive hopes for walked closer to the flowers, the cloud that had passed over them had apparently rained down on this part of the island as they were even fresher smelling then he could recall from the first time he had encountered them. His nose brushed against wet leaves and a droplet fell on him, rolling downwards onto his lips and he licked them. He had often wished to come up to the flowers again, for he found solace in them.

There were little to no things left untouched in the world. Everything had been seen, felt, wanted, possessed, used, loved, hated, discarded. Even summer vacations in the countryside of Britain had only served to remind him of the tales of the Aristocracy, of how they had treated the peasants. They would go on hunts and tread all over the peasant's land as if the peasant was the fox as if it had been their born right. It had not been bred into them to be able to treat the peasants as such, but they had grown and the peasants had not fought back so it had _become _their right.

Your rights were what you made them to be, and what people would accept. Flowers held no rights, nor did they want to but Roger suspected it was humans that had no rights to even _look_ at the flowers. They were all children, meant to be innocent but the only clean thing on the island were these glistening sky-coloured flowers. They were untainted with the smell of burning wood, or boys, or even blood. They held no hidden whiffs of factory, or car exhaust to ambush one. The blossoms and the leaves on the trees that united them all stirred gently, speaking no words but saying more, inspiring more than the average person ever would.

The entire half-cave smelled as what Roger imagined a mother would smell like, and he had a longing wish to stay there forever. But he remembered the one last favor he could offer and he whispered to one blue flower in particular, "I'll be back soon." He knew that the flower would wait.

The youngest littlun was six years old and the majority of the littluns were his size. At such a height they did not have long enough legs to carry them more than halfway so when the first boy fell, they all had to stop. Frantically, sweating and needing to run the biguns had agreed at Merridew's insistence to carry the small ones in their arms as they clumsily charged forward through the forest. None of the boys had ever ran as fast or as long as they did that day, much less carrying another boy.

But their extra trouble didn't come as a complete waste. The boy that Bill's arms contained pointed to the sky and cried that he could see smoke in the air. Everyone looked to the sky and sure enough there was a dark gray streak against the light blue, and this was where they all ran. With a destination they were only that much what quicker, brushing away branches that whipped and sliced up their skin.

As they broke through the forest onto the beach, the first thing they noticed was not the fire but the broken form curled next to it that was held protectively by Ralph. Simon's face was freckled with blood and was as pale and thin as ice, his eyes were closed tightly shut, his mouth whimpering and muttering nonsensical ramblings in what appeared to be a deep sleep. Suddenly his body seized and ceased to move at all. They looked to Ralph to see if Simon had died but Ralph's expression of extreme pity and misery for Simon, for himself and the world did not change.

"You want to know what happened, do you?" Ralph questionedwith his voice dull and exhausted sounding as if he had grown years and years passed his age within the last few days. They all nodded, sitting around the fire and looking at Ralph for the answers. All could he spare them was positively heartbroken as he cradledSimon's head in his lap, his fingers curling in Simon's hair. Simon's dark eyelashes fluttered but other than that gave no evidence except the lulling rise and heave of his chest that he was even 's eyes were sad and desperate and his voice cracked as he muttered, "No, no you don't."

What had happened was thatabout an hour after sunrise he and Simon had stirred awake, Ralph first by being shocked awake with a sudden jolt of unexplained adrenaline. His arms had automatically tightened around Simon but as he sat up straight and let Simon go, Simon's head slid off his chest and fell to the ground. Simon blinked blearily, his face still resting on the sand, before he found his bearings and pushed himself upright again.

"You alright?" he asked with his soft, well-meaning tone. Ralph's breaths had been coming harshly and with unexplained fear. Simon smiled benevolently and rested his forehead on Ralph's shoulder. As he spoke his breath tickled Ralph's neck, "Did you have a bad dream?"

"No, not at all," Ralph managed to choke out. "Dreamt of horses, of home. We got rescued . . . and my mum and dad got back together because they'd been so worried about me." Dreams usually signify nothing, and don't extend a meaning beyond the irrational logic one develops in one. But the dream of which Ralph spoke of was a dream he had dreamt while awake many times before.

"When we get rescued I think we'd probably just be put in . . . a mental institution, or at least I would. Nobody likes quiet. I got taken to a doctor for my fits, because they said it was all in my mind. They tried to all sorts of ways to change me just by talking, but it none of it worked so at last they just gave me some pills so that maybe it wouldn't hurt so much. That didn't work of course cos I never know when I'll get fits, but anyway I bet that's how they'd try to fix us."

"Would it work?" Ralph asked curiously. All he'd ever known about mental institutions was when the brave protagonist was locked away by manipulating evil so that it could continue evildoing without any disturbance.

Simon smiled absently and said, "They think they're doctors right? Doctors for our minds. But they don't use medicine, or surgery, at least for me . . . they try to fix it just by talking." He trailed away again, apparently deep in thought but Ralph wanted an answer.

"Well?"

"Well what?" Simon asked slowly.

"Would it work?" Ralph questioned with a tone of frustration evident in his voice.

"Well, I don't know. But I think that's really smart." They were quiet for a while as they reflected and it was Simon who spoke first. "Fire's lasted," he noted. "Looks like it might go out soon though. I'll go get us some more wood, tend it would you?"

"Alright," Ralph agreed. "Hey, do you think that . . . we could be fixed? Even the bad ones?Just by talking with someone about it."

"No," Simon replied easily. "The only way you can fix yourself is by thinking with yourself, maybe if they do help at all the only thing they can ever really do to help if to help you do that by . . . by charging you by the hour. What I mean is, we should've been fixing ourselves before it started, is what I mean. You should throw some leaves on the fire, they'd smoke up really well."

Ralph nodded in agreement, and stood on the tips of his toes to snag some leaves as Simon wandered into the forest even further away from Castle Rock. The green leaves he'd thrown on the fire eroded slowly and the smoke grew strong and thick and a darker shade. He had sat down by the fire, leaning against the tree and sighing. And then he saw the pair of cold, blue eyes staring right into him and then a spear was positioned at his throat.

His eyes flew up the hand that held the spear, to the arm connected to the blood-splattered chest and then to the bony, ugly face of Merridew. The red-haired chief had suddenly burst through the trees and Ralph knew it had been by complete chance that Merridew had not run into Simon off gathering twigs first, and Ralph felt irrationally grateful for it. He quickly put on a show of bravery as the spear touched into the hollow beneath his Adam's apple. "Merridew," Ralph hissed. "What are you doing here?"

"Thought I'd see how you were doing, where you got off to," Merridew bared his teeth in more of a grimace then the smile had been feebly attempting. He noted the crackling fire with frozen eyes. "Why'd you run off then?"

"You told Roger to kill Simon," Ralph accused, and he tried to evade the spear's point though his back was pressed against the tree.

"You can't prove it," Merridew replied, almost laughing.

"You got blood all over you, don't need to prove it! Anyone would believe me, you're cracked!" Ralph replied, shoving away the spear and standing to his feet and shoving Merridew's tainted skin. Merridew dropped the spear and swiftly pressed Ralph, standing this time, against the tree but this time with his forearm and his knife.

"It's allowed, see, it's part of the rules cos it's a game, understand?" Merridew hissed, standing at the same height as Ralph with his knife resting directly above his heart. "And I'm chief, I'm the only one who gets to make the rules! But nobody wants to play anymore, no that's not quite right. They don't want to play with the rules I've made! They want to make their own, they don't realize that my way is the best way."

"What, killing pigs until there's no more left?" Ralph spat. "And then getting Roger to do your dirty work and remove anyone who won't – won't _bow_ down and obey your every word? _No one_wants to play a game like that, cos it's not a game! its real people here – it's lives, it's –"

"I'm chief," Merridew repeated, almost as if it was a mantra. "It's a game if I say it is."

"It's _murder!_" Ralph screamed. His hands were trembling terribly with anger and they held onto the tree behind him to keep occupied.

"Gotta get rid of the other players then, as a penalty you see. Can't break the rules," Merridew said simply and Ralph felt sick. The knife was pressed against his chest but wasn't breaking the skin, Merridew seemed almost interested in how the enemy's mind worked.

"There's a difference between rules and laws! Nobody _wants_ to play by the rules, but everyone_has_ to follow the laws –"

"Why, what makes them different?" Merridew snapped.

"_Those _things make _sense_. Everyone agrees with them except for _murderers_, like you –"

"What, the people who 'break' the rules? Haven't you clued in thatit's those people who _make_ the rules? The ones that aren't afraid to kill those that disagree with them – you know, I bet that the first person who said that murder is wrong was the person who actually killed someone. I bet everyone was relieved, but they would've listened to him anyway even if he said –"

Ralph kneed Merridew in the stomach and Merridew keeled. Ralph looked around in vain for a weapon as Merridew curled up on the ground in pain. His eyes fell on some sort of pink shell with a sharp enough edge and he picked it up, hoping to use it as least a distraction. Merridew was on his feet again and was walking towards Ralph. Ralph held up the shell but Merridew knocked it out of the way when he kicked at Ralph's inner knee. Ralph crumpled to the beach in pain and Merridew lifted the offending shell and tossed it into the water.

Then again he held up his knife. It looked like the teeth in the jaws of some sort of monster preparing to close down on Ralph. "You should have stayed," Merridew said, almost sadly. Ralph shut his eyes against the terrifying sight. "Then maybe we could have –" the few syllables following came out as a gurgle of pain. Ralph opened his eyes in time to see Merridew pitch forward on the sand, a spear imbedded in his back. He looked up the bloodstained spear to the white hands that gripped it. Simon looked more horrified than Ralph had felt.

Steady hands were raised in the air, slick and red. "Simon!" Ralph cried, getting up and racing forward to grip Simon's shoulders. Simon did not fight the contact, he hardly acknowledged it as Ralph shook him. His hands brushed against Ralph's chest, streaking it red also with Merridew's hot blood "Look at me!" Simon did not, his eyes permanently fixated on the body of Merridew.

"I –" Simon at last spoke. "I . . . killed him." There was a tone of complete disbelief among other things and he looked at Ralph at last. "I killed him." His lower lip trembled.

"Yeah," Ralph panted. His hands still shook, but he was safe. "Thank you." Simon gave a look of shock to Ralph and then turned back to the body. "Here, I'll fix it," Ralph said quickly, walking to the body and slowly drawing out the spear. He threw it far into the sea and admired how it sailed through the air. Then he gathered Merridew and began to drag him out to see.

He walked up to his waist in the water, his bottoms getting soaked, and a trail of red followed them. He let Merridew, who had lost his weight in the water, slid off his back. Merridew's lungs were still filled with air so he did not sink, his body floated on top of the water but his blue eyes were no longer bright. Ralph felt a pang for their possible friendship, but there was no grief as his fingers slid Merridew's eyelids shut. He pushed Merridew into the sea, waiting for a few minutes until Merridew's had been caught by a current. Only then did he turn around, not to see the beach but Simon's dark eyes.

The fire that had only come into life that morning had faded away entirely, they could hardly focus on Ralph. "Simon," he said. Simon did not respond, only watched as Merridew's red hair was pulled under and returned bobbing to the surface as he was pulled away. Ralph turned around too, as the last traces of Jack Merridew disappeared. "That's the end of that game."

"Yeah," Simon agreed, stepping forward in the water. "A game." He moved forward again. "Wish we didn't have to play it. The other option is drifting out to sea, I guess." Ralph did not notice that something was amiss until Simon's nose was grazing the surface. "It's all we really can do."

"Simon!" Ralph yelled, swimming as fast as he could to his friend. The water was lapping at Simon's hair, and Ralph grabbed his shoulders to turn him around. Simon was trembling, tears rolling down his face.

"Don't you get it? I _killed_ him!"

"He tried to kill you! Me! I think he killed some other boys! You did us a favor!"

"I should've died! Should have rather died than kill some – I _killed_ him!" His voice was uncontrolled in a hysterical shriek, and his hands tightened around Ralph's shoulders. "I . . . I killed . . ." he broke off into silent sobs, knowing not what else he could do. "This is getting out of anyone's control, Ralph. Did you even _see_ what I did?"

"Shut up, don't say that," Ralph whispered, "You're the only good one left."

"I'm not good, not good," Simon whimpered inarticulately. "I killed him . . ."

"And yet, you're the only good one left!" Ralph roared. He grabbed Simon's arms and held him closer, beginning to cry as the realization rolled over him too. "You have to be good," Ralph whispered, his hand desperately patting through Simon's hair. "You've got to be." Simon's body collapsed in the way that Ralph had come to know, so managed to not let Simon clatter into the water. Simon's head was now cradled under Ralph's neck, and Ralph wept for horrors and presently pulled himself together. He took Simon onto his back and just as he dragged Merridew in, he dragged Simon out.

Simon's leg got caught on a shell while he pulled him out, but even the new wound didn't stir him. Ralph pulled him across the wet sand and then to the dry, letting him fall next to the fire. He sat with Simon, holding his prostrate body, willing the tears to stop. But when his eyes had dried and the other boys had arrived, Ralph told none of his followers of this. He felt he owed it to them, for all Merridew had ever given them was lies, but he could not portray the wise, true Simon in such a way. He could tell them what a wonderful person Simon was, and how he had rescued Ralph but just like Simon didn't, nobody would believe him.

And what boy would smile with Simon after they heard what he had done, if indeed Simon would ever smile again. They would put Simon in the cage of hospital that he knew too well, and Simon deserved no such they all deserved, was to go home and try to make ways through a normal, growing up life and try to forget. He hoped with all his self that Simon would be able to, if Ralph could somehow help him to move on while nobody else knew. But Ralph still could not lie, if the very least withhold information, with the skill that Merridew had. But Maurice had touched his arm in a way that softly said_we trust you_. Ralph nearly fell apart again

It was at that moment Roger chose to appearlike a ghost from behind the bushes. "Hullo," said he. "Looks like everything turned out alright, was a jolly good show." Ralph had a quick suspicion of what Roger was referring to but Roger held no interest in pursuing the subject. "But I went to the top of the mountain, and I saw a ship passing by. Thought it might interest you. Keep the fire tended, is all." And as suddenly he had entered the scene, just as quickly he left it.

"A ship?" wondered Bill.

"Yeah, a ship!" cried the twins, pointing frantically at the white dash crawling across the blue horizon. "Build the fire! We got to build the fire!" They noted the firewood Simon had dropped and tossed some on the fire with renewed spirits. Others teamed into the jungle to find more leaves and wood. The fire began to grow larger, almost out of their control but being so close to water they held no fear of it.

"It's bloody huge!"

"Bigger than anything –"

"Bet they can see it in England!"

"They see it! The ship sees it!"

"We're going home!"

"They're turning round!"

And indeed they were right, dizzy with possibilities some screamed with joy and some danced, but the innocent dance of whirling each other around. Ralph could see their happiness, and it warmed his heart to look at it, but he could not feel excitement did not die down but their voices presently did. Out from the quiet a question arose. "Well, what'll we do now, chief?" asked one of the twins, with a little cheeky smile. All the boys turned away from the roaring fire and the approaching ship and looked curiously at their leader for guidance.

Ralph took in a breath, and his fingers tightened in Simon's hair. He looked at each of their faces and wished to god it could have gone differently, but he knew they would have to make do. "Eh?" prodded the littlun with the mulberry birthmark. "What'll we do, then?" The littlun idly picked up the squashed candle-bud and threw into the fire, and an extra plume of smoke was contributed to the fire, darker and more powerful than any other smoke they had produced.

"We'll wait . . . and we'll keep it tended," Ralph said, smiling sadly. "Then, we'll go on. It's all we can do, really."


End file.
